Sentyurin met with his OPEC counterpart Mohammed Barkindo by teleconference June 22 for the inaugural technical meeting of the OPEC-GECF Energy Dialogue.

All that and softness in the dollar, along with endless cheap liquidity from central banks, helped spot gold gain 0.2% to $1,770.92 per ounce after touching $1,773, its highest level since October 2012 in early Asian trade.

Brent rose 49 cents, or 1.1%, to $43.57 a barrel, WTI was up 48 cents, or 1.2%, at $41.21 a barrel

Spot gold was up 0.1% at $1,756.40 per ounce

Australian economy supports a return to positive growth next year

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside of Japan rose 0.6% to 516.6 points after earlier going as low as 509.9. Chinese shares regained lost ground too, with the blue-chip index last up 0.3%.

Brent rose 10 cents, or 0.2%, to $42.29 a barrel, WTI was at $39.87 a barrel, up 4 cents, or 0.1%.

The slide in crude prices and recovery in economic activity late March had encouraged Chinese buyers to pile their shopping carts with all kinds of cheap crude,

The blue-chip FTSE 100 was down 0.2% and the mid-cap FTSE 250 0.1%, led by declines in battered energy , banks and travel and leisure stocks.

Brent rose 61 cents, or 1.5%, to $42.12 a barrel, WTI climbed 60 cents, or 1.5%, to $39.44 a barrel.

The dollar traded near a two-week high against a basket of currencies

Brent were up 2 cents at $40.73 a barrel, WTI dropped 14 cents to $37.82 a barrel.

World oil demand is projected to decrease by 9.1 mb/d in 2020, unchanged from the previous month’s assessment. The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected global economic activities, eliminating global oil demand growth potential and leading to a y-o-y decline of 6.4 mb/d in 1Q20 and by 17.3 mb/d y-o-y in 2Q20.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.2 million barrels from the previous week. At 539.3 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 15% above the five year average for this time of year.

Brent was up 29 cents, or 0.7%, at $41.25 a barrel, WTI rose 17 cents, or 0.4%, to $38.55 a barrel.