RTRS:Oil rebounds on robust China industrial output
By Alejandro Barbajosa
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - - Oil rebounded on Tuesday after China said industrial production grew faster than expected in May, easing concerns over a global economic slowdown and soothing worries that Europe's debt crisis would dent energy demand.
Brent crude for July climbed 19 cents to $119.29 a barrel by 0332 GMT, widening its premium to U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) to a record of more than $22 a barrel. July WTI shed 14 cents to $97.16.
China's May industrial output jumped 13.3 percent from a year earlier, topping forecasts for a 13.2 percent gain, government data showed on Tuesday. Consumer price inflation accelerated to a 34-month high, signaling Beijing may continue to tighten monetary policy.
"China is still ticking along nicely," said Ben Le Brun, an analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney.
"The government needs to tread a very fine line because the economy is still very hot. They may have to tighten again and that will have some effect on growth and a disruptive influence on oil demand, but I can't see anything derailing it."
Brent had fallen as much as 0.5 percent before the release of the Chinese data on prospects of lower European oil demand after rating agency Standard & Poor downgraded Greece to the lowest-rated country in the world.
Although the oil market read China's higher-than-expected industrial output as positive, the pace of growth was the slowest since November and underlined other data suggesting the world's second-biggest economy is slowing down.
China's money growth slowed to a 30-month low in May and banks extended fewer new loans than expected as monetary policy weighed on bank lending.