Oil prices steadied on Thursday at around $46 per barrel, as demand for gasoline and technical buying after a sharp fall the previous day offset worries about a large global supply glut.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were $45.83 by 0539 ET, up 2 cents following a 3.4 percent fall on Wednesday.
Gasoline margins in Europe have tripled since mid-October as low prices boosted consumption.
Demand is also strong in the United States, where gasoline importers on the East Coast are losing a trans-Atlantic tug-of-war over European supplies, outbid by Nigerian buyers anxious to avoid a holiday shortage.
“There is strength across the gasoline complex, which is supportive, and there is technical support as we reached the bottom of a two-month range yesterday,” said Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix in Zug, Switzerland.
U.S. crude futures CLc1 were $42.95 a barrel, up 2 cents from Wednesday when prices tumbled 3 percent on high production, rising U.S. stocks and an economic slowdown in Asia.
via Reuters
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Alfonso Esparza
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
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