oil futures bounced higher early thursday after saudi arabia said it would extend a production cut for another month crude was reclaiming some ground lost in the previous session after a downgrade of the us credit rating dented sentiment across markets offsetting a record drop in us crude inventories in a statement saudi arabias energy ministry said a voluntary production cut of 1 million barrels a day which was implemented in july and set to run through the end of this month would be extended to include september the cut can be extended or extended and deepened according to the statement brent and wti slumped more than 2 wednesday logging their biggest oneday percentage drops since june 27 despite data that showed a record 17 million barrel decline in us crude inventories last week analysts blamed soft sentiment about economic prospects in the wake of fitchs late tuesday downgrade of the us credit rating and a bounce in the us dollar dxy with sparking a selloff after crude had previously rallied to threemonth highs on signs of tightening global supplies and rising expectations over the demand outlook the timing for the downgrade was poor if not unfortunate with traders on vacation and away from their desks as markets are thin and remain susceptible to kneejerk reactions to the news said stephen innes managing partner at spi asset management in a note a friday meeting of an opec panel isnt expected to recommend any changes to the output policies of the group made up of the organization of the petroleum exporting countries and its allies including russia the energy information administration is expected thursday to report an 18billion cubic feet bcf injection to us natural gas storage for the week ended july 28 according to a survey of analysts by sp global commodity insight this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal