By Florence Tan
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Oil prices were little changed on Monday (NASDAQ:) as the threat of supply disruptions from a U.S. storm eased and after China’s stimulus plan disappointed investors seeking fuel demand growth in the world’s No. 2 oil consumer.
futures rose 4 cents to $73.91 a barrel by 0714 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $70.31 a barrel, down 7 cents.
Both benchmarks fell more than 2% on Friday.
Beijing’s latest stimulus package announced at the National People’s Congress (NPC) standing committee meeting on Friday fell short of market expectations, IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said in a note, adding that its murky forward guidance hinted at only modest stimulus for housing and consumption.
ANZ analysts said the lack of direct fiscal stimulus implied that Chinese policymakers have left room for assessing the impact of policies the next U.S. administration will introduce.
“The market will now shift focus to the Politburo meeting and Central Economic Work Conference in December, where we expect more pro-consumption countercyclical measures to be announced,” they added in a note.
Oil consumption in China, the world’s driver of global demand growth for years, has barely grown in 2024 as its economic growth has slowed, gasoline use has declined with the rapid growth of electric vehicles and liquefied has replaced diesel as a truck fuel.
Oil prices have also eased after concerns about potential supply disruptions from storm Rafael in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico subsided.
More than a quarter of U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil and 16% of natural gas output remained offline on Sunday, according to the offshore energy regulator.
Shell (LON:) and Chevron (NYSE:) each said on Sunday they would start redeploying personnel to their Gulf of Mexico platforms to resume operations.
Looking ahead, there were also concerns that U.S. oil and gas output could rise under the new Trump administration although analysts say 2025’s production forecast is unlikely to change.
“We think producers may think twice about turbo-charging U.S. supply in an era when OPEC+ has already staked out plans to gradually raise production targets over the course of 2025,” Tim Evans of Evans Energy said in a note.
Trump’s election promise of hiking import tariffs to boost the U.S. economy have clouded the global economic outlook although expectations that he could tighten sanctions on OPEC producers Iran and Venezuela and cut oil supply to global markets partly caused oil prices to gain more than 1% last week.
Oil markets are also being supported by firm demand from U.S. refiners who are expected to run their plants at above 90% of their crude processing capacity on low inventories and improving demand for gasoline and diesel, executives and industry experts said.