Oil prices seesawed on Thursday as tumbling stock prices on Wall Street offset bullish sentiment from inventory draws at the U.S. crude delivery hub cited by a market data provider.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed up 43 cents, or 0.97 percent, at $44.91 a barrel, having slumped $1.88 on Wednesday. Brent crude was up 45 cents at $48.90 a barrel, after ending the previous session down $1.33.
U.S. equities' key index hit session lows at midday as prices of industrial stocks fell on concerns of slowing global economic growth.
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That pared the gains in oil, which rallied earlier on data from market intelligence firm Genscape suggesting a drawdown of 625,000 barrels out of the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude in the week to Sept. 22.
"There was a technical bounce after the Genscape numbers were noticed by the market, though there were also new lows from sell-stops after the S&P tanked," said Peter Donovan, broker at New York's Liquidity Energy.
U.S. crude tumbled 4 percent on Wednesday after a large build in gasoline stockpiles offset the bullish impact of a crude drawdown for the week to Sept. 18 reported by the U.S. Energy Information.
The Cushing inventory reduction reported by Genscape on Thursday followed through with the 462,000-barrel drop the EIA reported for the hub for the week to Sept. 18.
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Weak U.S. data also weighed on oil futures.
August durable goods slid 2 percent while the gauge of U.S. business investment plans fell modestly in August. The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits rose last week.
"The data shows that the U.S. economy isn't as punchy as people thought it was, as shown by the fact we've not seen a pick-up in consumables despite the sharp fall in energy prices," said Michael Hewson, analyst at CMC Markets.