Crude-oil futures rose in Asian trading Thursday on signs that China's economy continues to recover, shrugging off bearish supply and demand data in the U.S.
Crude prices have traded sideways in the past week, but investors reacted to Chinese customs data released Thursday showing crude imports in December rose 8% from a year earlier to 23.67 million tons.
Combined with a sharp rise in China's trade surplus in December, the data suggest continued acceleration of economic activity since September, which also pushed regional shares higher.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February traded at $93.49 a barrel at 0638 GMT, up $0.39 in the Globex electronic session. February Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.15 to $111.91 a barrel.
"The brightening of demand prospects suggests that this upswing will continue," said Commerzbank in a note.
China's crude-oil imports grew at a relatively modest pace in 2012, at 6.8%--higher than the 6.1% import growth recorded in 2011, but well off 2010's 17.5%, before a slowdown in the domestic economy.
China--the world's No. 2 oil consumer--will continue to import large amounts of energy this year, a customs official said at a news conference.
The rise in crude prices came despite ample supply and signs of weakening demand in the U.S. Data issued Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration implied oil demand in the U.S. fell 6% last week to an 11-month low, while crude oil inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the benchmark U.S. crude-oil futures contract, topped 50 million barrels for the first time ever.
The data also showed U.S. crude oil output has risen above 7 million barrels a day. The EIA forecasts crude oil production to reach 7.3 million barrels a day on average in 2013 and 7.9 million in 2014, the highest annual rate of crude oil production in the U.S. since 1988.
According to the EIA, the U.S. and Canada will be responsible for most of the rise in production over the next two years from countries outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. Non-OPEC output is expected to rise 1.4 million barrels a day this year and 1.3 million barrels a day in 2014.
By contrast, OPEC's production is projected to decline by 600,000 barrels a day this year, mainly due to Saudi Arabia curbing supply in response to the increase in non-OPEC production.
Later Thursday, investors will keep an eye on initial U.S. employment data for the week ended Jan. 5, as well as a rate decision by the European Central Bank followed by possible comments by ECB President Mario Draghi on the union's economic outlook.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for February--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 1 points to $2.7790 a gallon, while February heating oil traded at $3.0770, 71 points higher.
ICE gasoil for January changed hands at $953.25 a metric ton, up $4.75 from Wednesday's settlement.
Write to Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen at jacob.pedersen@dowjones.com
