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U.S. government report showed that domestic gasoline demand fell
in the latest week [EIA/S]. Middle distillates inventories at
Asia's Singapore oil hub have soared above a nine-year high,
official data showed..
Brent crude <LCOc1>, the international benchmark, was up 30
cents, or 0.7%, at $44.37 by 1130 GMT, heading for a 1.5% drop
this week.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) <CLc1> rose 36 cents, or
0.9%, to $41.73, though WTI's advance looks unlikely to prevent
its first weekly drop in five.
"Despite the price gains today, which somehow smoothed the
losses of the week, the bigger market picture is overall bearish
sentiment that kicked off with lower gasoline demand reports on
Wednesday," said Paola Rodriguez-Masiu, analyst at Rystad
Energy.
In focus on Friday will be U.S. payrolls figures at 1230 GMT,
which could be a selling trigger if an expected slowdown in
hiring is steeper than forecast. The unemployment rate is
expected to fall to 9.8% from 10.2%.
"Demand concerns are firmly front and centre of traders' minds,"
said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM. "Today's non-farm U.S.
payroll report will be closely watched and a disappointing
number could be the next bearish catalyst."
Oil has recovered since April, when Brent slumped to a 21-year
low below $16 and U.S. crude briefly went into negative
territory.
A record supply cut since May by the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group
known as OPEC+, has supported prices.
OPEC began in August to ease the scale of the cuts, raising
output by almost 1 million barrels per day according to a
Reuters survey. [OPEC/O]
(Additional reporting by Florence Tan and Koustav Samanta;
Editing by Mark Potter and David Goodman)
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