Oil’s yo-yo act continues with boost from China data after slump on Fed

Investing.com -- Down one day and up the next: oil’s interim volatility isn’t letting up, with bullish Chinese data propping up crude prices Thursday, after the previous day’s slump on the hawkish Fed stance that U.S. rate hikes will likely continue despite a June pause.

New York-traded WTI crude was up $2.03, or 3%, to $70.30 per barrel by 11:53 ET (15:53 GMT). Week-to-date, the U.S. crude benchmark is up a marginal 0.2% after a 3.5% tumble over two prior weeks.

London-traded Brent rose by $2.05, or 2.8%, to $75.25. For the week, the global crude benchmark was up about 0.7%, after a 3% slump over two prior weeks.

It has been a swing of a time — literally — for oil which began the week with a 4% drop driven by recession concerns, then witnessed a 3% rebound on a China rate cut before sliding 2% on a massive jump in U.S. crude inventories and a hawkish stance by the Fed.

Thursday’s comeback was based on data showing a 15.4% rise from a year in China's oil refinery throughput in May, hitting its second-highest total on record.

Some expect oil prices to see support later in the year from production cuts announced by Saudi Arabia. 

Analysts at UBS said in a note carried by Reuters that they expect a supply deficit of around 1.5 million barrels daily in June and more than 2M per day in July.

“These are small positives but it could be enough to stop crude from making fresh lows for the year,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA. 

Brent’s low thus far for 2023 has been $70.12, against WTI’s $63.70.

Notwithstanding the UBS projection, others point to Russia's virtually unsupervised indiscriminate oil sales at around the $60-a-barrel cap sanctioned by the G7.