By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Oil futures edged higher in Nymex electronic trading on Tuesday, moving back from four-month lows hit in the previous session.
Crude for August delivery CL1Q -0.04% rose 16 cents to $90.75 in the electronic trading session on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after a 55 cent decline took the contract to its lowest settlement level for four months in regular trading in New York on Monday. Read more on Monday\'s oil move.
Worries about future demand for oil amid signs of softening economic growth, as well as oversupply concerns in the wake of an emergency release of oil from member countries of the International Energy Agency, have pressured oil prices in recent sessions.
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Still, fellow benchmark Brent crude futures ended with a gain on Monday, a move that energy analysts at MF Global said “may be attributable to perceptions that the IEA stock release may be viewed as increasingly dependent on what Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries does.”
They said that “if Saudi Arabia and their allies pull back on some of their extra production, the impact of the IEA’s stock releases could be blunted.”
Still, the analysts were of the view that oil prices have further to fall.
“We continue to believe that the short-term bias in most commodity complexes will be lower still, although the rate of decline may start to flatten out as prices start approach more reasonable valuations,” they said.
A reasonable price target for Brent, given the current fundamentals, would be between $95 and $100 a barrel, and between $85 and $90 for Nymex, they said.
Brent crude futures were trading down 65 cents at $105.95 a barrel on Tuesday.
Sarah Turner is MarketWatch\'s bureau chief in Sydney.
