Oil prices rise amid OPEC supply cuts, but trade worries weigh

* OPEC has led supply cuts since the start of the year
* Brent remains below $70/b amid U.S./China trade war
* Speculators cut long crude positions
* China auto sales to be flat this year - Xinhua

By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE, May 27 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Monday as
ongoing supply cuts led by producer club OPEC kept markets
relatively tight, but Brent remained below $70 per barrel on
concerns over an ongoing trade war between the United States and
China.
Front-month Brent crude futures LCOc1 , the international
benchmark for oil prices, were at $69.10 per barrel at 0021 GMT,
up 41 cents, or 0.6 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were
up 10 cents, or 0.2 percent, at $58.73 per barrel.
"The relative strength of the very short end of the curve
likely reflects the market pricing in a known variable of lower
supplies from OPEC+," said Edward Bell, commodity analyst at
Emirates NBD bank.
A group of producers led by the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), known as OPEC+, has been
withholding supply since the start of the year to tighten the
market and prop up prices.
But Monday's gain could not make up for falls last week,
when both crude futures contracts registered their biggest price
declines this year amid concerns that the Sino-American trade
dispute could accelerate a global economic slowdown.
Money managers cut their net long U.S. crude futures and
options positions in the week to May 21, the U.S. Commodity
Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday. "Some signs of low confidence are creeping into positioning
data," Bell said.
In oil futures markets, the trade war effect is better seen
beyond the spot market.
"The impact from a trade war is a more medium- to long-term
issue and Dec. spreads weakened sharply over the last week," he
said.
Beyond financial markets, there are also signs on the ground
of a slowdown in oil demand growth.
China's automobile sales, a key driver of global oil demand
growth, will reach around 28.1 million units this year,
unchanged from levels seen in 2018, when the country's auto
market contracted for the first time in more than two decades,
state news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday. The outlook for flat car sales may be too optimistic still,
as monthly sales have so far declined for 10 consecutive months.
A bright spot for carmakers, although not for the oil
industry, is that sales of new energy vehicles are likely to
grow by about 27 percent to hit 1.6 million units, from 1.26
units in 2018, the report said.