Oil pares gains as investors wait to see if coronavirus stimulus works

Oil prices rose on Thursday but pared early gains as investors tried to assess how effective massive stimulus by central banks will be in shoring up the global economy as the shock from the coronavirus pandemic deepens.

Bucking panic selling in other financial markets, Brent crude was up 37 cents, or 1.1% at $25.25 a barrel by 0355 GMT, having earlier risen to $27.19. The global benchmark slumped 13% on Wednesday in a third day of relentless selling.

U.S. oil gained $1.44, or 7.1%, to $21.81 after surging nearly 20% earlier. The U.S. benchmark dropped nearly 25% in the previous session.

Among the latest moves by a major central bank to try to mitigate the spiralling economic and financial fallout from the epidemic, the European Central Bank kicked off a 750 billion euro ($820 billion) emergency bond purchase scheme after an unscheduled meeting on Wednesday.

Japan is considering handing out cash to households as it faces the likelihood of recession after a sharp contraction of growth even before the outbreak, while South Korea and Australia also took action.

Analysts are also slashing estimates for China, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, to the lowest since the Cultural Revolution came to an end in 1976, in a further grim outlook for the world's second-largest economy and oil demand

The spread of coronavirus is showing no sign of abating internationally. Countries on every continent have resorted to drastic lockdowns to try to contain the virus that has now infected more than 200,000 people worldwide, killing more than 8,000. Many analysts say a major global recession is in prospect.