{"id":20890,"date":"2023-04-24T18:56:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T18:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/oil-prices-slide-on\/"},"modified":"2023-04-24T18:58:15","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T18:58:15","slug":"oil-prices-settle-higher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/oil-prices-settle-higher\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil prices settle higher on optimism about fuel demand in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Laura Sanicola<\/p>\n<p>(Reuters) -Oil prices settled higher on Monday, reversing losses as investors grew optimistic that holiday travel in China would boost fuel demand in the world&#8217;s largest oil importer.<\/p>\n<p>Brent crude settled up $1.07, or 1.3%, at $82.73 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled up 89 cents, or 1.1%, at $78.76.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, both contracts fell more than 5% for their first weekly declines in five as U.S. implied gasoline demand fell from a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p>China&#8217;s bumpy economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic has clouded the oil demand outlook, though Chinese customs data on Friday showed record volumes of imports in March. <\/p>\n<p>Bookings in China for trips abroad during the upcoming May Day holiday point to a continued recovery in travel to Asian countries, but the numbers remain far off pre-COVID-19 levels with long-haul airfares soaring and not enough flights available.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of optimism around Chinese holidays as it relates to jet fuel demand, the first genuine numbers on Chinese demand construction,&#8221; said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.<\/p>\n<p>Supply tightness owing to additional supply cuts planned by the OPEC+ producer group from May could also lift prices.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Planned output cuts by the OPEC+ alliance and a strong demand outlook from China could provide a fillip to prices in the coming days&#8221;, said independent oil analyst Sugandha Sachdeva.  <\/p>\n<p>Iraq&#8217;s northern oil exports also showed few concrete signs of an imminent restart after a month of standstill, as aspects of an agreement between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have yet to be resolved, according to four sources.<\/p>\n<p>Refining margins in Asia have weakened on record production from top refiners China and India, curbing the region&#8217;s appetite for Middle East supplies loading in June..<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Laura SanicolaAdditional reporting by Noah Browning in Lodndon, Florence Tan in Singapore and Mohi Narayan in New DelhiEditing by David Goodman and Sharon Singleton)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/oil-prices-rise-on\/file-photo-the-sun-sets-behind-a-crude-oil-pump-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3N00O-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3N00O-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Laura Sanicola (Reuters) -Oil prices settled higher on Monday, reversing losses as investors grew optimistic that holiday travel in China would boost fuel demand in the world&#8217;s largest oil importer. Brent crude settled up $1.07, or 1.3%, at $82.73 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled up 89 cents, or 1.1%, at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":20891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-20890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3N00O-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20890"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21814,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20890\/revisions\/21814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}