REUTERS

Oil bounced by around $1 a barrel on Wednesday to claw back some of the previous day’s 6 percent plunge, lifted by a report of an unexpected decline in U.S. commercial crude inventories and record Indian crude imports.

But investors remained on edge, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) warning of unprecedented uncertainty in oil markets due to a difficult economic environment and political risk, Reuters said.

International Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were at $63.60 per barrel at 0516 GMT, up $1.07 per barrel, or 1.7 percent from their last close.

Видео дня

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1, were up $1.03 cents, or 1.9 percent, at $54.46 a barrel.

Read alsoReuters: Oil prices drop as broad market sell-off outweighs supply concerns

Wednesday's rebound came after a report by the American Petroleum Institute late on Tuesday that U.S. commercial crude inventories last week fell unexpectedly by 1.5 million barrels, to 439.2 million, in the week to November 16.

Record crude imports by India of almost 5 million barrels per day (bpd) also supported prices, traders said.

Yet Wednesday's bounce did little to reverse overall market weakness, which saw crude tumble by more than 6 percent the previous session amid a selloff in global stock markets.

"The global economy is still going through a very difficult time and is very fragile," IEA chief Fatih Birol said on Tuesday.

U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday the renewed price collapse reflected "concerns over excess supply in 2019... (and) a broader cross-commodity and cross-asset sell-off as growth concerns continue to mount."

With output surging and the demand outlook deteriorating, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is pushing for a supply cut of between 1 million and 1.4 million bpd to prevent a repeat of the 2014 glut.

"We would anticipate further weakness until the reaction from OPEC+ (December 6) and the G20 summit is clearer (November 30/December 1)," said Ashley Kelty, oil analyst at investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald Europe.