International Brent crude oil futures were trading at $48.86 per barrel at 0644 GMT (0244 ET), down 30 cents, or 0.61 percent, from their last close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was down 40 cents, or 0.84 percent, at $47.01 per barrel.

Amid all the gloom inflicted by adverse market conditions, intense focus on efficiency improvement emerges as a bright underlying theme. With oil prices now $50./b after hitting a low of $27 a barrel in January, the expectation is that some stability may finally be returning to the market. Higher oil price is certainly a positive for producers.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading at $49.39 per barrel at 1028 GMT, down $1.49 from their last close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude Clc1 was down $1.27 at $47.25 a barrel.

This summer the U.S. oil price has whipsawed from more than $50 a barrel in June to below $40 earlier this month. In the past two weeks it has risen more than 20%, to a recent $48.22 a barrel.

Customs data showed on Monday that diesel exports rose 181.8 percent to a record 1.53 million tonnes, almost tripling China's average monthly export volume in 2015.

During the period we continued to focus on improving our efficiency and pro-actively restructured some of our central functions and have reduced costs in those areas where business activity reduced. As a result margins were higher than both Q1, 2016 and Q2, 2015.

U.S. Rig Count is up 10 rigs from last week to 491, with oil rigs up 10 to 406, gas rigs unchanged at 83, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 2. Canadian Rig Count is down 5 rigs from last week to 121, with oil rigs unchanged at 65, gas rigs down 4 to 56, and miscellaneous rigs down 1 to 0.

Brent ended the session up 2.09 percent at $50.89. The session high of $51.05 was its highest since June 23. U.S. crude settled at $48.22, up 3.06 percent after touching a session high of $48.38, the highest since July 5.

Prices have struggled to go much higher than $50 a barrel. After the longest run of gains since March, Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded 0.9 percent higher at $51.17 at 7:13 a.m. in London on Friday.

Five Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, China, India, and Taiwan) accounted for 68% of global LNG imports in 2015. In the first six months of 2016, in total, these five countries only increased their LNG import volumes by 1% (0.2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d)), compared to the same period last year. However, higher imports in China and India more than offset declines in LNG consumption in the established markets of Japan and South Korea.