naturalgas futures drop nearly 9 after a biggerthanexpected rise in weekly supplies oil futures finished higher on thursday finding support on concerns that russias escalation of its invasion of ukraine could further crimp energy flows the potential for increased demand from china also helped to lift oil prices analysts said oil rose after settling a day earlier at their lowest prices in two weeks crude prices fell wednesday after another weekly rise in us crude inventories and a federal reserve interest rate hike that was accompanied by signals the central bank will continue to aggressively increase interest rates in its effort to get inflation under control worries that aggressive rate increases by the fed and other major central banks many of which followed suit by raising their rates on thursday will spark a global recession or a major economic slowdown had overshadowed russian president vladimir putins decision to partially mobilize reservists as well as comments that were viewed as a threat to use nuclear weapons analysts said economic uncertainty is likely to cap any rallies for oil in the mid 90to100 a barrel range leaving oil in a sideways trading pattern neartomedium term said analysts at sevens report research in thursdays newsletter still the geopolitical influences from the war in ukraine will remain a tailwind as will opec badly undershooting their production targets they said readwhy europes efforts to cap russian oil prices and ban imports are doomed to fail indeed russias moves raise significant supply concerns said warren patterson head of commodities strategy at ing in a note this is a clear escalation and raises concerns over what the implications could be for russian energy flows there is the potential that we see the west having to become more aggressive in terms of energy sanctions or the potential for putin to weaponize energy even further he wrote russia has limited leverage left around natural gas with flows to the european union already down around 70 yearoveryear where russia has more leverage is oil but even this will reduce in the coming months as the eus ban on russian oil and refined products comes into effect patterson said prospects for an increase in chinese crude demand were also providing support analysts said at least three china staterun oil refineries and a privately run mega refiner were weighing a 10 rise in runs in october from september amid prospects for increased demand and a possible pickup in exports in the fourth quarter reuters reported reports that china is considering authorizing up to 15 million tons of refinedproduct exports however are a weight on products prices if these latest reports are confirmed this will be a big deal for product markets with it equating to around 1 million barrels per day of refined product supply for the remainder of the year patterson said this should offer some relief to middle distillate markets which have been extremely tight this year meanwhile data from the energy information administration thursday showed that domestic naturalgas supplies rose by 103 billion cubic feet for the week ended sept 16 that was larger than the average analyst forecast for an increase of 92 billion cubic feet based on a survey conducted by sp global commodity insights readhow investors may benefit from a dive in naturalgas prices as winter looms