NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures traded near 21-month lows early Wednesday, extending the previous session's weakness, as fears about a sharp slowdown in demand weighed.
Crude for October delivery fell 61 cents to $58.72 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex.
Earlier, it hit an intraday low of $57.70 a barrel.
A combination of factors -- weak global macroeconomic data as well as a fresh retreat in the U.S. stock market -- is serving to "undermine the case for commodities," said Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global.
"There is nowhere for longs to hide in practically any of the markets; base metals are hovering just above their late October lows, while the U.S. stock market has given up about half of its recent two-week gains," Meir said in a note to clients.
On Tuesday, crude futures closed down 4.9% at $59.33 a barrel after briefly touching $58.32, marking their lowest in 21 months.
Also Wednesday, the International Energy Agency dismissed fears about "peak oil" but said a lack of sufficient investment in energy production could give rise to output troubles.
"Although global oil production is not expected to peak before 2030, conventional crude-oil production is projected to level off toward the end of the projection period," it said. The IEA published the full report on its world energy outlook after releasing a summary last week. Read more.
Also on the Globex, December reformulated gasoline fell 1 cent to $1.29 a gallon and December heating oil dropped 3 cents to $1.90 a gallon.
Natural gas for December delivery gained to $6.72 per million British thermal units, up 1 cent.
Delays for weekly supply data
Energy traders won't have one of their usual data points to pore over later Wednesday.
The Energy Information Administration will release its weekly data on U.S. petroleum supplies on Thursday at 11 a.m. Eastern, a day late because of the Veterans Day holiday.
Analysts at MF Global expect the figures covering the week ended Nov. 7 will show a buildup of 1.4 million barrels in crude inventories. They also expect to see increases of 400,000 barrels for distillate supplies and 1 million barrels for motor gasoline.
On average, industry analysts polled by Platts expect to see increases of 1.1 million barrels for crude, 1 million barrels for distillates and 850,000 barrels for motor gasoline.
The EIA also will delay its release of the weekly natural-gas supply data by a day, to Friday at 10:30 a.m. EST. Analysts at IHS Global Insight expect gas in storage to have risen by 40 billion cubic feet for the week ended Nov. 7.
