West Texas Intermediate oil fell for a second day, extending the biggest drop in two weeks, while Brent futures were little changed. Saudi Arabia’s crude shipments slid to a 15-month low in December. New York crude declined as much as 0.4 percent. Data from the Federal Reserve showed U.S. industrial production unexpectedly shrank in January. Saudi Arabia exported 7.06 million barrels of crude a day in December, the least since September 2011, according to the Joint Organisations Data Initiative. Christof Ruehl, chief economist at BP Plc, sees no scarcity of supply and expects Saudi Arabia to reduce exports further, he said today in an interview in London. Brent’s premium to WTI widened as the London-traded contract rose. “It’s the kind of skewed situation where we have growth in the U.S. but they have enough oil, and where we do have the major demand growth, we don’t have the oil,� Ole Hansen, the head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S in Copenhagen, said in a telephone interview today. “That’s obviously putting the upside pressure on the Brent crude more than on WTI.� Trading Halt Crude for March delivery fell as much as 41 cents to $95.45 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $95.67 at 3:50 p.m. Dubai time. The contract dropped $1.45 to $95.86 on Feb. 15. The volume of all contracts traded was 25 percent below the 100-day average. Floor trading in New York will be closed today for the U.S. Presidents’ Day holiday. Electronic trading will also cease at 1:15 p.m. Eastern time, resuming at 6 p.m. Brent oil for April settlement on the ICE Futures Europe exchange gained 14 cents to $117.80 a barrel with trading volume 52 percent below the 100-day average. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $21.64 to WTI contracts, from $21.25 on Feb. 15. The gap expanded to $23.18 on Feb. 8, the widest since Nov. 26. Brent has gained 6 percent this year, while WTI has added 4.2 percent. “We’ve had a strong rally so far in 2013, and now we are considering if this is a pause in the upturn or if it is actually a turning point, but there is no significant macro trigger to release a correction, at least at the moment,� Filip Petersson, commodities strategist at SEB AB, a Stockholm-based bank, said today. Factory Output U.S. output at factories, mines and utilities decreased 0.1 percent after a 0.4 percent gain in December, data from the Federal Reserve showed Feb. 15 in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey called for a 0.2 percent rise. Hedge funds and other large speculators increased bullish bets on WTI, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly report on Feb. 15. Net-long positions rose by 9,308 futures and options combined, or 4.4 percent, to 221,534, the highest since the week ended March 27, the Commitments of Traders report showed. Oil in New York has long-term technical support along its 100-week moving average, around $94.73 a barrel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Futures have halted intraday declines near this indicator in the past four weeks. Buy orders tend to be clustered close to chart-support levels. Price ‘Wall’ “There still seems to be plenty of crude around,� said Anthony Nunan, a senior adviser for risk management at Mitsubishi Corp. in Tokyo. “The market went up so much in the last month and a half that it was bound to come off. We have to correct downward from here. For WTI it will be tough to go to triple digits. We’ve hit a wall at $98.� Ruehl of BP said the size of any future reduction in Saudi output will depend on the actions of other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Iraq, OPEC’s largest producer after Saudi Arabia, curtailed exports by 10 percent to 2.35 million barrels a day in December, data posted on the website of the initiative known as JODI showed. Venezuela increased crude shipments by 19 percent to 1.97 million barrels a day, the most since July 2008, when it exported 2.24 million. OPEC’s 12 members supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil. JODI, supervised by the Riyadh-based International Energy Forum, uses statistics supplied by national governments to compile data on imports, exports and output for oil-producing and consuming nations. The data include crude and condensates and exclude natural gas liquids. Gasoline futures extended gains in New York after settling last week at the highest price since Sept. 28. The contract for March delivery was up as much as 1.61 cents, or 0.5 percent, at $3.1506 a gallon. To contact the reporters on this story: Nayla Razzouk in Dubai at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net; Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net

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