Investing.com -- China, once best friend to commodity bulls, is increasingly turning hostile toward oil longs.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate and U.K.’s Brent crude initially fell as much as 2% Tuesday after China’s trade data for July showed exports tumbling at its fastest pace in 3-½ years.
By lunch hour in New York though, crude prices were back in the positive on renewed bull fervor over Saudi production cuts and how that could impact data due later in the day on U.S. petroleum balances from last week.
“The trade data from China was undoubtedly disappointing as it once again showed sluggish demand both domestically and externally, which is consistent with what we've seen elsewhere,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA.
But Erlam also noted that Saudi production cuts had put a bottom to the market, which ”now looks much tighter”.
With 90 minutes to Tuesday’s settlement, WTI was up 29 cents, or 0.4%, to $82.23 per barrel after tumbling below key $80 support earlier, to a session low of $79.94.
The U.S. crude benchmark gained almost 20% over six previous weeks on the back of Saudi attempts to aggressively slash production. Last week, WTI reached $83.23 last week for its highest since April.
Brent was up 24 cents, or 0.3%, to $85.58, after a session bottom of $83.33. Like WTI, Brent hit three-month highs last week, reaching $86.64, and gaining about 17% over the past six weeks.
Overall, Chinese imports contracted by 12.4% in July, far steeper than the expected 5% drop. Exports fell by 14.5%, compared with a fall of 12.5% tipped by economists.
Disappointing China data masked by Saudi production cuts
On the oil front, China's crude purchases in July were down 18.8% from the previous month to the lowest daily rate since January, but still up 17% from a year earlier, data showed.
“The trade data from China was undoubtedly disappointing as it once again showed sluggish demand both domestically and externally, which is consistent with what we've seen elsewhere,” said OANDA’s Erlam.
“The economy is quite clearly in need of a boost and I'm just not convinced it's going to come, not in the forceful and widespread manner it has in the past. Authorities are more likely to engage in smaller, targeted measures that won't provide the confidence boost investors, or households can really get behind. The sluggish recovery looks set to continue.”
Outside of China, fuel consumption in India — third-biggest oil importer and consumer after the United States and China, respectively — slipped to a 10-month low in July as monsoon rains restricted mobility, government data showed.
Market participants were also on the lookout for U.S. weekly oil inventory data, due after market settlement from API, or the American Petroleum Institute.
The API will release at approximately 16:30 ET (20:30 GMT) a snapshot of closing balances on U.S. crude, gasoline and distillates for the week ended Aug. 4. The numbers serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.
For last week, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile drop of 0.233 million barrels, versus the historic 17.049-M barrel plunge reported during the week to July 28.
On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for a build of 0.217M barrels on top of the 1.48M-barrel gain in the previous week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.
With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a drop of 0.167M barrels versus the prior week’s drop of 0.796M. Distillates are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets.