oil futures ended lower tuesday failing to hold modest early gains scored after china delivered an interestrate cut amid concerns over the demand picture from the worlds secondlargest crude importer us traders were returning from a threeday weekend after markets were closed monday for the junteenth holiday the peoples bank of china on tuesday cut both its short and longterm benchmark lending rates by 10 basis points tuesday in an effort to support the nations slowing economic recovery the move came after the pboc last week reduced two key policy rates by 10 basis points each crude prices rose last week following backtoback weekly declines after finding support in thursdays session when the wall street journal reported that chinese authorities were preparing a range of aggressive economic stimulus measures disappointment in chinas economic recovery after the lifting of covid curbs has dogged the oil market in 2023 with wti and brent both down more than 20 for the year to date skeptics question whether the efforts tuesday will provide a meaningful lift oil prices are a bit rangy to start the week and seemingly moved into shortterm tug of war mode as chinas economic headwinds clash with increased pboc policy support said stephen innes managing partner at spi asset management in a note but before confidently pushing the oil market higher from here you would ideally like to see a convincing fall in us storage this week he wrote analysts said concerns around iranian supply also weighed on the market reuters citing industry data reported that iranian crude exports topped 15 million barrels a day in may the highest monthly figure since 2018 when they ran near 25 million barrels a day before the us withdrawal from a nuclear deal reports of talks between the biden administration and iran aimed at achieving an interim nuclear pact weighed down crude last week commodities corner talk of an interim usiran nuclear deal is just noise but has potential to upset the oil applecart 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