Oil prices were
stable on Tuesday as financial investors and traders were cautiously
positioning themselves for a win by Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential
elections.
U.S. West Texas
Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $44.97 at 0610 GMT, virtually flat
from their previous settlement. The contract gained nearly 1.9 percent the
previous session.
International Brent
crude prices were up 8 cents at $46.23 per barrel.
"Investors
piled back into the energy sector," ANZ bank said, with polls putting
Clinton ahead of her Republican competitor Donald Trump in Tuesday's election.
Clinton is seen by investors as offering greater certainty and stability.
In China, oil data
released on Tuesday was weak, albeit coming down from high levels.
"Chinese oil
imports ... eased slightly in October but remained at elevated levels (on
year)," ANZ bank said on Tuesday following the data release.
China, which vies
with the United States for top spot as the biggest crude importer, bought 6.78
million barrels of oil from abroad in October, down 12.9 percent from the
previous month and one of the lowest volume this year on a daily basis.
The country's
refined oil product exports jumped 24 percent on a year earlier, as the nation
produced more fuel than it could absorb.
Crude prices were
held back by lingering doubts over the ability of oil producers to agree on a
planned output cut to prop up a market which has been dogged by two years of
oversupply.
The chief executive
of U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson said on Monday that global oil
supplies have exceeded demand by 1 million to 2 million barrels per day since
the start of 2015.
In physical oil
markets, U.S. pipeline companies with operations at the heart of the country's
commercial oil industry at Cushing, Oklahoma, restarted on Monday after an
earthquake late on Sunday triggered safety shutdowns.
reuters
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