Crude oil gained more than one percent on Monday after China pledged to make its currency more flexible, raising expectations of higher demand from the world’s second largest energy consumer .

Some analysts said a stronger yuan against the U.S. dollar might render Chinese imports of dollar-denominated oil cheaper, boosting energy consumption. China burns about 10 percent of the world’s supply.

“In the very short term this is boosting oil market sentiment”, said Amrita Sen, analyst at Barclays Capital in London.

But the longer-term impact on oil and other commodity prices may be small, further analysts said, since China will not let the yuan rise sufficiently high to make much difference to its companies’ spending power on commodity imports

U.S. crude for July delivery CLc1 climbed as much as $1.69 to $78.87 on Monday, the highest since May 6, and was up $1.10 at $78.28 at 1057 GMT.