LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters): Oil prices steadied on Thursday, paring early gains after the Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin would meet US President Donald Trump in the coming days, raising expectations for a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine.
Brent crude futures were up 24 cents, or 0.4 per cent, at $67.13 a barrel at 1305 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude was up 21 cents, or 0.3 per cent, to $64.56.
Both benchmarks slid about 1 per cent on Wednesday, touching their lowest in eight weeks, after comments from Trump on progress in talks with Moscow.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday that Trump and Putin would meet in the coming days in what would be the first summit between leaders of the two countries since 2021.
A White House official had previously said that Trump could meet Putin as soon as next week, though the US continued preparations to impose secondary sanctions on major buyers of Russian energy products, potentially including China, to try to pressure Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.
Oil is benefiting from a crude draw in the US, higher Saudi prices for Asia and solid Chinese crude imports in July, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo, adding that gains were curbed by news of the potential Trump-Putin meeting next week.
Russia is the world's second-biggest producer of oil behind the United States.
The Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that US crude oil stockpiles fell by 3 million barrels to 423.7 million barrels in the week ended August 1, exceeding an expected decline of 591,000 barrels in a Reuters poll of analysts.
In China, crude oil imports in July dipped 5.4 per cent from June but were still up 11.5 per cent year on year, with analysts expecting refining activity to remain firm in the near term.
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, on Wednesday raised its September crude oil prices for Asian buyers, the second monthly rise in a row, on tight supply and robust demand.
Global macroeconomic uncertainty capped oil price gains, however, after the US ordered a fresh set of tariffs on Indian goods. Trump imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods on Wednesday, citing the country's continued imports of Russian oil. The new import tax will take effect on August 28.
Trump also said he could announce further tariffs on China.
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