NEW YORK: Oil prices rose around three per cent on Thursday, buoyed by hopes of a breakthrough in looming trade talks between the United States and China, the world’s two largest oil consumers.

Brent crude futures were up $1.70, or 2.8pc, at $62.82 a barrel at 1:12pm EDT (1712 GMT). US West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.79, or 3.1pc, to $59.86.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with China’s top economic official on May 10 in Switzerland for negotiations over a trade war that is disrupting the global economy. Optimism around those talks was providing support to the market, said SEB analyst Ole Hvalbye.

The countries are the world’s two largest economies and the fallout from their trade dispute was likely to lower crude consumption growth. Analysts cautioned that the recent tariff-driven volatility in the oil market was not over.

“The global risk premium that was pushing oil prices up and down during the past couple of years has been replaced by a

tariff premium that will also be fluctuating in response to the latest headlines out of the Trump administration,” Jim Ritterbusch, of US energy consultancy Ritt­erbusch and Asso­ciates, said in a note.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2025