After a decline Tuesday, oil prices are back up amid strong optimism about a rebound in Chinese demand.

A barrel of European reference crude Brent goes for USD 86.42 Wednesday morning against USD 87.03 Tuesday afternoon. US counterpart West Texas Intermediate trades concurrently at USD 80.24 per barrel against USD 80.67 Tuesday afternoon.

”Expectations that China’s fuel demand will recover in the second half of the year are growing and are likely to support market sentiment,” says general manager of research at Nissan Securities Hiroyuki Kikukawa, according to Reuters.

Oil prices stay afloat on expectations of rising fuel demand in China, yet gains were also capped by a bigger build-up of US crude stocks than expected.

Inventories rose by approx. 3.4 million barrels last week, according to a source citing figures from the American Petroleum Institute. This is three times higher than estimates provided as part of a poll conducted by Reuters on Monday. 

The market is also keeping an eye on any new decisions on interest rate hikes from central banks. 

Elsewhere in commodities, a troy ounce of gold costs USD 1,931.74 against USD 1,934.95 Tuesday afternoon.