Brent crude futures were up 9 cents, or 0.1%, at $74.38 a barrel by 0340 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $69.43 a barrel, up 1 cent.
"It seems that the short-term hot monies are hesitant to bid prices higher due to impending key data and events such as China's industrial production, retail sales, and the housing price index for May due tomorrow, as well as today FOMC's latest dot-plot projections," said Kelvin Wong, a senior market analyst at OANDA in Singapore.will pause rate hikes amid uncertainty on both the economic outlook and the lagged effects of 10 rate hikes since March 2022.
The European Central Bank is also expected to hike interest rates by another quarter percentage point on Thursday to tame stubborn inflation. But the Bank of Japan, which will announce its plan on Friday, is expected to maintain its ultra-loose policy.