The price of Petroleum Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose a very slight 0.03% on Tuesday and closed at 80.86 dollars, between the bullish impulses of the Chinese recovery and the bearish fears of a possible economic slowdown.
At the close of business in New York, the WTI barrel for delivery in May rose 3 cents compared to the close of the previous day.
Last week black gold rose a little over 2% boosted by a report from the International Energy Agency (AIE) that expected an increase in demand -driven by China-, up to a record figure of 101.9 million barrels per day.
Also, today it was made public that the Chinese GDP rose 2.2% in the first quarter of this year.
However, once again the fear of a recession and the growing belief that the Federal Reserve will raise rates by another quarter of a point seem to have dampened investor sentiment.
In addition, investors are also very aware of the quarterly results of the large companies, which began to be released last week.
On the other hand, natural gas futures contracts for May gained $0.09 to $2.36 and gasoline futures for the same month fell $0.02 to $2.75.