By Jenny W. Hsu 
 

Crude-oil prices gained slightly in Asia trade Tuesday, mainly driven by bargain-hunting as analysts say the tepid rise in China's crude-oil imports last month was uninspiring.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in November traded at $47.48 a barrel at 0339 GMT, up $0.38 in the Globex electronic session. November Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.50 to $50.36 a barrel.

Oil prices nosedived overnight on Wall Street, falling around 5% after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reported its September output climbed to a more-than-three-year high at an average of 31.57 million barrels a day, up about 109,000 barrels a day from the previous month and higher than the group's target of 30 million barrels a day.

Lingering oversupply coupled with slowing global demand, in particular from China, the world's largest crude importer, have slashed prices by nearly half since last summer. Traders often watch China's trade data closely to assess future demand.

According to China's General Administration of Customs, the country's September exports fell 3.7% year-over-year in dollar terms, an improvement from a 6.1% fall in August and a 6.5% drop expected by the market, while imports fell 20.4% in dollar terms, falling short of a 16% fall expected by the street, deepening worries that the world's second-largest economy is spattering.

China's September crude-oil imports rose 1.4% year-over-year to 27.95 million tons, rising 8.8% year-over-year to 248.62 million tons in the first nine months of the year.

"The rise in crude imports isn't too impressive considering the broader prolonged imports decline," said Virendra Chauhan, an oil analyst at Energy Aspect, adding that most of the Chinese buying of crude oil in recent months was likely to leverage the current price slump to build up reserves.

The September data was also likely boosted by delayed shipments, as the deadly blast at the Tianjin port in August resulted in cargoes being sent back to Singapore, he said.

Daniel Ang, an energy analyst at Phillip Futures, said the bullish momentum was likely to be short-lived given heightened uncertainty such as the continuing violence in Syria and expanding oil production in the Middle East.

"Today's rise is purely bargain-hunting and the market is keeping an eye on the weekly U.S. inventory and production data for cues," he said.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is expected to release its weekly analysis on Thursday.

Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for --the benchmark gasoline contract-- points to $ a gallon, while diesel traded at $, points .

ICE gasoil for changed hands at $ a metric ton, $ from 's settlement.

Write to Jenny W. Hsu at jenny.hsu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 13, 2015 01:22 ET (05:22 GMT)