The September crude oil futures contract in NYMEX ACCESS trade at 11:15 Tokyo time on Thursday was at $42.09 per barrel (bbl), up 17cts from the closing price in New York on Wednesday while the September Brent contract in ICE After Hours Trading was at $43.61/bbl, up 14cts from the previous day. "Amid a lack of market-moving factors, bargain hunting by market players in response to the overnight drop sent prices higher," Tatsufumi Okoshi, a senior economist at Nomura Securities said. Okoshi added that the upside was limited by bearish weekly US Energy Information Administration (EIA) oil data that showed crude inventories increased for the first time in 10 weeks. Meanwhile, the Nikkei Stock Average lost 167.81 points in Thursday morning trade declining to 16,497.01 as the dollar depreciated to 105.12 to the yen.

RECX-22 index for Thursday was at 66.59 points, up 0.03 points from the previous day.