Oil prices steadied on Wednesday after the previous session’s losses, as demand concerns owing to slow global economic growth were offset by fears of tighter global supply following Saudi Arabia’s pledge to deepen output cuts. Brent crude futures were up 9 cents, or 0.1%, at $76.38 a barrel at 0039 GMT. The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 11 cents, or 0.2%, to $71.85 a barrel.
Both benchmarks eased about 1% on Tuesday, paring some of Monday’s gains that were driven by top crude exporter Saudi Arabia’s surprise pledge over the weekend to reduce output by 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to 9 million bpd in July. “The market has digested the news of Saudi’s production cut and investors are now reluctant to take a large position because of mixed economic forecasts and indicators in the United States and China,” said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, president of NS Trading, a unit of Nissan Securities.
