SINGAPORE (Reuters): Oil prices rose around 1% on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged his country would stop buying oil from Russia, a move that could drain supply elsewhere.
Brent crude futures rose 56 cents, or 0.9%, to US$62.47 a barrel by 0655 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures climbed 58 cents, or 1%, to US$58.85.
Both contracts touched their lowest since early May in the previous session on U.S.-China trade tensions and after the International Energy Agency warned of a big surplus next year as OPEC+ producers and rivals lift output amid weak demand.
Trump said on Wednesday that India, which taps its top supplier Russia for about one-third of its oil imports, would halt oil purchases from Russia, and the U.S. would next try to get China to do the same as Washington intensifies efforts to cut off Moscow's energy revenues and pressure it to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine.
However, India said on Thursday that the country's two main goals were to ensure stable energy prices and secure supply. The foreign ministry statement made no reference to Trump's comment about India's purchases of Russian oil.
Some Indian refiners are preparing to cut Russian oil imports, with expectations of a gradual reduction, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said on Wednesday that he told Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato that the Trump administration expects Japan to stop importing Russian energy.
India and China are the two top buyers of Russian seaborne crude exports, which are sanctioned by the U.S. and European Union. For months, Modi resisted U.S. pressure to stop buying Russian oil, with Indian officials defending the purchases as vital to national energy security.
"At the margin, this is a positive development for the crude oil price as it would remove a big buyer (India) of Russian oil," said Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG.
The UK government also announced new sanctions on Wednesday, directly targeting Russia's Rosneft and Lukoil - two of the world's biggest energy companies.
The sanctioned entities include four oil terminals, the private refiner Shandong Yulong Petrochemical in China, 44 tankers in the "shadow fleet" transporting Russian oil, and Nayara Energy Limited, a Russian-owned refinery in India.
Later on Thursday, investors will be watching for the weekly U.S. inventory statistics release from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) after mixed data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) trade group.
U.S. crude and gasoline stocks rose while distillate inventories fell last week, market sources said, citing API figures on Wednesday.
Crude stocks rose by 7.36 million barrels in the week ended October 10, and gasoline inventories increased by 2.99 million barrels, while distillate inventories fell by 4.79 million barrels from a week earlier, the sources said.
While lower distillate inventories point to stronger demand for diesel, a buildup in crude oil and gasoline stocks suggests demand in the U.S., the world's top oil consumer, remains sluggish.
Analysts forecast that U.S. crude stockpiles rose by about 0.3 million barrels last week.
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova in Tokyo and Sam Li in Beijing; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Jamie Freed, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kate Mayberry) - Reuters
