Oil fell in New York, heading for a fourth weekly drop, as investors bet fuel demand will falter amid signs of weaker growth in the world’s biggest crude consumers. Brent traded at a record premium to U.S. prices. Futures slipped as much as 2.1 percent today, leading a decline in global commodity prices. Supply disruptions in the North Sea and Africa have boosted Brent to $25.95 a barrel above New York crude, which has tumbled 29 percent from its peak this year. U.S. oil supplies are 4 percent higher than the five-year average after unexpectedly rising last week. “It’s looking pretty sick, there’s broad-based slowing,” said Ben Westmore, a minerals and energy economist at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Melbourne, who predicts U.S. futures will average $93 a barrel in the third quarter. “There’s weakness across the eurozone and the possibility of a dip back into recession is now a material probability.” Crude for September delivery dropped as much as $1.72 to $80.66 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $81.32 at 2:34 p.m. Sydney time. The contract yesterday plunged 5.9 percent to $82.38. Prices are down 4.8 percent for the week. Brent oil for October settlement fell 71 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $106.28 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices are 1.6 percent lower this week and 16 percent below this year’s high. Record Premium Brent’s premium has widened amid supply disruptions in the North Sea, Nigeria and Libya, in contrast to increasing stockpiles in the U.S. The price, a benchmark grade for Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa, was most recently at a discount to New York crude on Aug. 16, 2010. “The news out there is not good for crude,” said Jonathan Barratt, a managing director of Commodity Broking Services Pty in Sydney, who predicts New York oil will average $100 a barrel in 2011. Prices have averaged $97.18 so far this year. U.S. oil inventories increased 4.23 million barrels to 354 million last week, an Energy Department report showed Aug. 17. They were forecast to drop 500,000 barrels, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. Supplies haven’t been disrupted by the weather as much as in previous years. The 2011 Atlantic storm season has set a record for the most tropical systems without a hurricane, according to Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Seven named storms have formed this year, a mark the season usually doesn’t reach until Sept. 16. Ichimoku Cloud Oil is extending losses as futures drop below technical support at about $83.83 a barrel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the lower of two leading-span lines marking a so-called Ichimoku cloud on the weekly technical chart. Prices fell to a four-year low of $32.40 in December 2008 about two months after breaching a similar support level at $88.83. Prices are being driven lower by financial markets, not by supply and demand, Qatar’s oil minister, Mohammed Saleh al Sada, said in Doha yesterday. Qatar, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumped 810,000 barrels of oil in July, according to Bloomberg News estimates. “In view of the fact that oil is a strategic commodity, we are watching what is happening in global markets,” he said. Citigroup Inc. cut its growth forecast for the U.S., joining Morgan Stanley in raising concern the global economy will slow. Data yesterday showed jobless claims rose and Philadelphia-area manufacturing shrank by the most since 2009. China will expand 8.9 percent this year, down from an earlier forecast of 9.1 percent, Deutsche Bank AG said in a report dated Aug. 17, citing the “shock” of a U.S. and European Union slowdown. The U.S., China and Europe will account for about 48 percent of global oil demand this year, according to International Energy Agency estimates. To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net

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