Crude-oil futures were lower in Asian trade Friday as investors booked profits after Nymex crude, buoyed by a better-than expected U.S. weekly jobless claims report, climbed 1.3% overnight to settle at its highest level in a week.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded at $91.46 a barrel at 0637 GMT, down $0.10 in the Globex electronic session. April Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.13 to $111.02 a barrel.
Also pressuring oil prices were fears of a global economic slowdown after the European Central Bank Thursday lowered forecasts for the euro-zone economy this year and next, a Tokyo-based trader said, tipping Nymex crude to trade in the $90.30-$92.50-a-barrel band today.
However, economic data from China was mixed, having a muted effect on prices, market participants said.
China posted a trade surplus of $15.25 billion in February compared with a $29.15 billion surplus in January, data from the General Administration of Customs showed Friday. The surplus narrowed but was still better-than-expected, as economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had projected a median deficit of $16 billion.
Although China's imports of crude oil in the first two months of this year fell 2.4% on year, demand will likely rebound in the coming months, as industrial activity in China is expected to pick up, Sijin Cheng, vice president of research at Barclays, told Dow Jones Newswires.
The Brent-WTI spread narrowed to as low as $19.25 a barrel Thursday, with WTI supported by recent positive U.S. macroeconomic data releases and Brent being pressured by the reported re-start of a North Sea pipeline, Jim Ritterbusch at Ritterbusch & Associates said in a note late Thursday.
"Nonetheless, we still see gravitation back toward the $20 a barrel mark, as we view independent WTI gains as unsustainable. Crude stocks are at their highest levels in about 80 years on a per-date basis, while Cushing supply is not drawing as had been expected prior to the expansion of the Seaway pipeline," Mr. Ritterbusch said.
Investors now await U.S. non-farm payrolls data Friday for fresh cues on the health of the global economy. Over the weekend, China will release data on inflation, industrial output and retail sales.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for April--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 89.9 points to $3.1323 a gallon, while April heating oil traded at $2.9742, 53 points lower.
ICE gasoil for March changed hands at $932.25 a metric ton, up $1.25 from Thursday's settlement.
