The price of crude oil was ticking lower Thursday morning, with the US dollar trading firm versus a basket of currencies.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for March delivery, slipped $0.09 to $96.92 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled marginally lower after the International Energy Agency nudged down global oil demand projection to 90.7 mbd for 2013 , which is 90,000 bd less than forecast last month.
Wednesday during trading hours, the EIA revealed that US crude oil inventories edged up 0.60 million barrels, while gasoline stocks shed 0.80 million barrels in the weekended February 08. Analysts expected crude oil stocks to gain 2.2 million barrels and gasoline stocks to add 0.50 million barrels last week.
This morning, the U.S. dollar was hovering around its 3-week high versus the euro and extending its 6-month high against sterling. The buck was hovering around its two-and half year high versus the yen and ticking higher against the Swiss franc.
In economic news, the euro zone economy contracted further at a faster than expected pace in the fourth quarter, flash estimates from Eurostat showed. Gross domestic product declined 0.6 percent, much bigger than the prior quarter's 0.1 percent fall and also worse than a 0.4 percent expected decline. This third straight quarter of contraction signals that recession is deepening in the bloc. On a yearly basis, the decline in GDP accelerated to 0.9 percent from 0.6 percent in the third quarter. Economists had forecast a 0.7 percent drop.
Meanwhile, the German economy contracted more than forecast in the fourth quarter, data from the Federal Statistical Office showed. The gross domestic product fell 0.6 percent quarter-on-quarter on a seasonally and calendar- adjusted basis in the fourth quarter, worse than the expected 0.5 percent contraction. This followed a 0.2 percent expansion in the third quarter.
Traders will look to the weekly jobless claims data from the U.S. Labor Department, due out at 8.30 a.m ET. Economists expect claims to decline to 360,000 in the week from 366,000 in the previous week.
