United States crude oil futures increased for three consecutive days in Thursday, a recovery from its tumble of not less than three percent on Monday following the United States President Donald Trump's tweet that calls OPEC to ease its effort to boost crude prices as he said that prices were "getting too high".
Crude oil futures gained on Wednesday after the influential oil minister of Saudi Arabia disregarded the pressure from Trump. The United States president said that Saudi Arabia and its fellow OPEC members need to "take it easy" on price-boosting production cuts. Trump's tweet caused oil prices to sink on Monday. United States West Texas Intermediate crude gained 28 cents, or 0.5 percent, at $57.22.
Brent crude futures closed on Monday at $2.36, or 3.5 percent as it settles at $64.76 per barrel. The United States crude oil dropped by 3.1 percent, $1.78 lower at $55.48. According to Jim Ritterbusch, President of Ritterbusch and Associates, Trump appears to be attempting to micromanage the oil... to maintain strong enough production to keep global supplies in surplus. He, however, added that as far as the Saudis are concerned, the tweets could even embolden their efforts toward restraint.
The oil market is at an unstable state on Thursday because of the United-States-China trade tensions. Recently the two nation's trade negotiators made several rounds of negotiations to close a deal before the March 1 deadline approaches. The business industry had high hopes last week as the White House announced that they are about to agree on a deal with China.
Robert Lighthizer, the United States Trade Representative, dampened the hopes that the United States and China agree on a swift resolution to the trade dispute. He said that the issues between the two nations were too serious to be resolved with promises that China will purchase more United States goods. Spectators are currently waiting for the decision of Trump whether to extend the March 1 deadline or to immediately impose additional tariffs to Chinese goods.
Activities of factories in China lessened for three months after export orders dropped at its fastest pace since the global financial crises a decade ago. John Kilduff, founding partner at energy hedge fund Again Capital, said during an interview with the CNBC that the real critical center for crude oil in Asia and Asia demand and the economic data out of Asia has been quite poor and he is not certain that even striking a trade deal with China is going to improve that country's fortunes.
