MW: Oil trades near $47 a barrel ahead of supply data
By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures traded near their lowest level in over three years Wednesday, as investors awaited the latest data on U.S. petroleum supplies due later in the session.
Crude oil for January delivery was up 6 cents to $47.02 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex.
On Tuesday, the contract ended down $2.32 to $46.96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest closing level since May 20, 2005.
"So far this week, economic data globally and global economic forecasts have been very gloomy and provide added ammunition to the bears' case for driving prices lower, especially given OPEC's failure to cut output at the weekend and fully comply with the previous 1.5 million barrels a day cut from Nov. 1," said Nimit Khamar, an analyst at Sucden Research, in a note.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which controls about 40% of the world's oil production, ended a weekend meeting in Cairo without any decision on a production cut. The cartel will meet next on Dec. 17 in Oran, Algeria.
In more bleak economic data, the U.S. private sector shed 250,000 jobs in November, the biggest job loss in seven years, according to the ADP national employment index released Wednesday. The loss was in line with estimates of analysts surveyed by MarketWatch.
The ADP report comes two days before the government releases its report on the labor market for November, with analysts expecting the worst losses in more than 25 years. See Economic Report.
Supply data ahead
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and American Petroleum Institute will release two separate reports on last week's petroleum inventories at 10:35 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
Analysts surveyed by energy information provider Platts expect a 2 million barrel buildup in crude stockpiles. They also expect a 1.1 million barrels buildup in gasoline inventories and a 900,000 barrels increase in distillate stocks.
Last Wednesday the EIA reported U.S. crude inventories rose 7.3 million barrels in the week ended Nov. 21.
Also on the Globex Wednesday, January reformulated gasoline fell 1 cent to $1.05 a gallon and January heating oil was flat at $1.58 a gallon.
January natural gas futures fell 2 cents to $6.40 per million British thermal units.
