By Stephanie Kelly
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Oil prices dipped on Thursday, wiping out gains earlier in the session, after the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin would meet U.S. President Donald Trump in the coming days, raising expectations for a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine.
Brent crude futures were down 6 cents at $66.83 a barrel at 12:44 p.m. EDT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 4 cents to $64.31.
Both benchmarks slid about 1% 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.
The U.S., however, continued preparations to impose secondary sanctions on major buyers of Russian energy products to try to pressure Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.
Russia is the world’s second-biggest producer of oil behind the United States.
The U.S. ordered a new set of tariffs on Indian goods. Trump imposed an additional 25% 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.
India is the second-biggest buyer of Russian oil after China.
Trump also said he could announce further tariffs on China.
Oil prices have dropped around 9% since last week, falling for six consecutive sessions.
“Additional increases in OPEC production remain as the overriding negative consideration while continued tariff uncertainties are still providing the main argument favoring lower price levels,” analysts at energy advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies including Russia, together known as OPEC+, agreed on Sunday to raise oil production by 547,000 barrels per day for September.
Thursday’s selling was limited by a crude stockpile drawdown in the U.S., higher Saudi prices for Asia and solid Chinese crude imports in July, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo.
The Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that U.S. 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. [EIA/S]
In China, crude oil imports in July fell by 5.4% from June but were still up 11.5% 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.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Trixie Yap. Editing by Mark Potter, Barbara Lewis and Nia Williams)
