Investing.com - West Texas Intermediate oil struggled to erase losses sustained in the prior session from a surge in U.S. crude inventories and continue 2019’s bullish trend.
Sentiment was positive ahead of an afternoon meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s top trade negotiator, vice-premier Liu He, which some hoped would unlock a trade deal between the two countries and banish doubts about the trajectory of Chinese oil demand.
Trump will meet China’s top trade negotiator at 4:30 PM ET (20:30 GMT) in Washington on Thursday.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures slipped 5 cents, or 0.1%, at $62.41 a barrel by 9:23 AM ET (13:23 GMT) in New York. It had hit an intraday high of $62.77 earlier on Thursday, well above Wednesday’s closing price of $62.58.
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., slipped 4 cents, or 0.1%, to $68.97, pulling back from its intraday high of $69.50.
An unexpected surge of 7.2 million barrels in crude stockpiles stateside snapped a three-day winning streak in U.S. oil prices Wednesday, although there was some argument over how much of the increase was due to the closure of the Houston Ship Lane, which interfered with loadings last week.
That data was still enough for bulls to take a pause in an ongoing 2019 rally in which WTI has soared more than 30%.
Aggressive production cuts from OPEC and Russian-led allies have convinced traders that the global supply glut is on track to dry up this year. U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, along with power outages in the latter, are also contributing to a reduction in supply.
"There is a clear bias to the upside with the supply restrictions," said Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney.
"And there's a much-better-than-expected demand picture after the recent China and U.S. PMI numbers, along with a potential kicker from any U.S.-China trade agreement," he added.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures fell 0.7% to $1.9385 a gallon by 9:29 AM ET (13:29 GMT), while heating oil inched up 0.03% to $2.0075 a gallon.
Lastly, natural gas futures traded down 0.2% to $2.673 per million British thermal unit.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.