Brent holds steady around $59, Saudis say oil demand growing

Brent crude held steady around $59 a barrel on Wednesday as Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said oil demand is growing and markets are calm, reports Reuters.
Oil prices crashed by 60 percent between June and January to a post-2009 low near $45 a barrel but have since recovered.
“Markets are calm now … demand is growing,” said minister Ali al-Naimi, the driving force behind OPEC’s shift in policy at its November meeting, when the group decided not to cut output to support prices but instead to fight for market share.

Brent has been helped by better-than-expected Chinese factory data, the Federal Reserve’s flexible stance on U.S. interest rates and the euro zone’s approval of reforms proposed by Greece.

But U.S. crude was weaker after settling lower for the fifth consecutive session on Tuesday on a bigger-than-anticipated crude stock build-up.
Brent LCOc1 had fallen 10 cents to $58.56 a barrel by 4.45 a.m. ET, while U.S. crude futures CLc1 fell 30 cents to $48.98 a barrel.
China’s factory sector showed marginal expansion, according to the flash HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index. It inched to a four-month high of 50.1 in February, just above the 50 level that separates growth in activity from contraction. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast a reading of 49.5.