Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday, as a weaker greenback lent support to commodities, and as investors awaited inventory data due later in the day.
More oil data is expected on Wednesday and on Thursday.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for
delivery in July traded at $59.38 a barrel, up $1.26.
On London's ICE Futures exchange July Brent crude rose $1.42, or 2.4%, to $64.74 a barrel.
Both Nymex and Brent crude logged overnight losses and have been lower for three trading sessions after Chinese data indicated sluggish demand.
China's overall exports were down 2.5% in May, year-on-year, while imports were down 17.6% during the same period. The report helped to put some selling pressure into the crude oil market, as well as copper market, as the Asian nation is the world’s largest importer of raw commodities.
Investors will now await the U.S. Energy Information Administration to release
its monthly short-term energy outlook later Tuesday.
Fresh supply-demand estimates will likely determine the direction of oil prices.
Analyst Tim Evans at Citi Futures said that to date, demand has only expanded enough to offset weak macroeconomic activity in places like China instead of significantly boosting consumption levels.
The market also is facing an upswing in OPEC production
in recent months with the group producing one million barrels a day
higher than last year.
“In other words, OPEC is going beyond refusing to offset non-OPEC supply growth to add more actively to the global surplus,” he said.
Later Tuesday, oil traders will eye the American Petroleum Institute for its
weekly U.S. oil inventory data that is likely to show another decline.
Meanwhile, OPEC is expected to issue its oil report on Wednesday and the International Energy Agency’s report comes out Thursday.
