By Claudia Assis and Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures slipped Thursday, joining a broader drop across commodity markets, with natural-gas futures bucking the trend ahead of an inventories report.
Crude for June delivery CLM2 -1.90% lost $1.84, or 1.7%, to $103.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Earlier, better-than-expected weekly jobless numbers in the U.S. helped oil to pare losses, “but there is still a good amount of tentativeness ahead of tomorrow given yesterday’s poor ADP report,” said Matt Smith, an analyst with Summit Energy, in a note to clients.
Wednesday’s report showing an increase in crude inventories at a 21-year high was helping to keep crude subdued, he added. “General markets are looking positive today on further decent earnings releases from US companies, but crude is keeping its feet on the ground.” Smith said.
Prices held to losses after news a gauge of the U.S. services sector slowed to a six-month low in April.
Natural gas futures traded higher, with the June contract rising 8 cents, or 3.1%, to $2.33 per million British thermal units. The Energy Information Administration is scheduled to release its report on natural gas’s supplies later Thursday.
Analysts polled by Platts expect an increase between 30 billion cubic feet and 34 bcf for the week ended April 27.
A build within those lines would be smaller than the 60-bcf increase recorded in the corresponding week of 2011 and below the 79-bcf five-year average increase for this time of the year
Oil closed out the Wednesday session 0.9% lower, after its own U.S. supply report and a disappointing private-sector jobs report stoked fears about the outlook for energy demand.
The soft jobs print came ahead of the more closely watch nonfarm payroll report, due out Friday.
A higher dollar also added pressure earlier, although the dollar index lost some steam after comments by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi in a press conference post interest-rate decision.
The ICE dollar index DXY -0.01% recently traded at 79.150, down slightly 79.151 in late North American trading on Thursday.
A stronger greenback can discourage investment in dollar-priced commodities such as crude, as it makes the commodity more expensive to holders of other currencies.
Earlier, the ECB left its key lending rate unchanged at 1%, as expected. Draghi spoke of a still-worrying euro-zone economy and surprised investors by saying the ECB policy committee did not discuss specific interest-rate moves.
Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.
Virginia Harrison is a MarketWatch reporter based in Sydney.
