Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell for a second day after a federal official said Enbridge Energy Partners LP will be allowed to restart a pipeline supplying the U.S. Midwest. The Enbridge link should be open by the end of the week, said Carl Griffis, Chicago-area senior engineer from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Oil supplies dropped 2.49 million barrels to 357.4 million, the Energy Department reported today, matching the median of estimates from 19 analysts in a Bloomberg News Survey. “The most recent reports make it clear that the Enbridge pipeline should be up and running by the end of the week,” said Tom Bentz, a broker with BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York. Crude oil for October delivery fell $1.25, or 1.6 percent, to $75.55 a barrel at 10:39 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are down 4.8 percent this year. Brent crude oil for October settlement, which expires today, fell 31 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $78.85 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The government sees no “systemic problems” with the pipeline, Griffis said in an interview yesterday. The pipeline was shut Sept. 9 after spilling 6,500 barrels. Canada is the largest exporter of crude to the U.S., sending 2.2 million barrels a day in June, Energy Department data show. The decline in prices accelerated after a reading of manufacturing in the New York region expanded at a slower pace than forecast in September, signaling that factory managers remain concerned about a slowdown in U.S. economic growth. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s general economic index fell to 4.1 this month, the lowest reading since July 2009, from 7.1 in August. Economists forecast the measure would rise to 8, according to the median of 50 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. --Editors: Joe Link, Richard Stubbe To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net.

Source