Futures in New York edged higher after falling as much as 0.8% earlier. US total petroleum stockpiles jumped by 22 million barrels last week, the biggest increase in data going back to 1990, government figures showed Wednesday. Data from countries representing around half of global oil consumption shows year-on-year demand growth ground to halt in a March and April, Morgan Stanley said in a note in which it cut its Brent forecast for the second half.

Oil has fallen around 22% since late April as the US-China trade relationship worsened and the White House picked a new fight with Mexico. That’s caused a sharp deterioration in the demand outlook, while the American inventories data are now giving investors additional cause for worry. A meeting of the Saudi Arabian and Russian energy ministers in St. Petersburg this week may give some clues as to their response.

“The high inventory levels are spooking markets at the moment,” said Howie Lee, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. Investors have also realized the drop in demand will be worse than they thought “because it seems like there is no end to where the US draws a line on picking a trade war with every other country,” he said.

West Texas Intermediate futures for July rose 13 cents, or 0.3%, to US$51.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10.30am in Singapore after falling as much as 41 cents earlier.

Brent for August settlement added 12 cents to US$60.75 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe Exchange. It closed 2.2% lower on Wednesday. The global crude benchmark traded at a premium of US$8.81 to the WTI.