WTI depressed below $ 49 mark, China data weigh

Oil futures on NYMEX fell back into the red zone on Monday, having reversed Friday’s temporary bounce.

Despite renewed weakness, the black gold remain confined in a tight trading range, as the European traders digest the latest Chinese data dump. Disappointing Chinese industrial production and refining activity growth data served as the negative inputs for the commodity. China is the world’s second largest oil consumer.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday, Chinese refineries processed 0.4 percent more crude oil in July than a year earlier at 45.5 million tonnes, or about 10.71 million barrels per day (bpd).

Further, the prices remain depressed amid a bearish US drilling activity report published late-Friday, which showed that the US energy companies added 3 rigs in the week to Aug. 11 bringing the total count up to 768, the most since April 2015.

Looking ahead, the oil markets will get influenced by any developments on the North Korean issue, while the weekly US supplies report will also have a major bearing on the commodity. At the time of writing, WTI trades -0.20% lower at $ 48.72 while Brent drops -0.30% to $ 51.90.

WTI technical levels 

The resistances are aligned at $ 49.64/70 (intermittent tops), $ 50 (psychological levels), and $ 50.43 (Aug 1 high) while supports are located at $ 48.00 (round number), $ 47.39 (100-DMA), $ 46.62 (50-DMA).