Investing.com - Oil prices were lower on Thursday, as investors weighed bloated global inventories against an uptick in demand.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude September contract was at $49.34 a barrel by 3:30AM ET (0730GMT), down 25 cents, or around 0.5%.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for October delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London shed 25 cents to $52.11 a barrel.
Oil prices finished higher on Wednesday, as investors viewed weekly U.S. inventory data on crude and refined products as bullish.
The Energy Information Administration reported a 1.5 million barrel drop in U.S. crude supplies last week, below analysts’ expectations.
However, gasoline inventories fell by a more-than-expected 2.5 million barrels while demand hit a record above 9.8 million barrels a day, the EIA said.
Meanwhile, oil traders looked ahead to a technical meeting of some OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Abu Dhabi next week to assess how the group can increase compliance with production cuts that began at the start of this year.
So far, the output deal has had little impact on global inventory levels due to rising supply from producers not participating in the accord, such as Libya and Nigeria, as well as a relentless increase in U.S. shale output.
Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for September was down 1.5 cents, or around 1%, to $1.629 a gallon, while September heating oil fell 0.9 cents to $1.649 a gallon.
Natural gas futures for September delivery ticked up 0.6 cents, or 0.2%, to $2.817 per million British thermal units, as traders looked ahead to weekly storage data due later in the global day.