SD: WTI Crude Oil Fluctuates After Longest Advance in 3 1/2 Months
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- West Texas Intermediate oil fluctuated following its longest rally in 3 1/2 months as traders await publication of U.S. employment data.
Futures fell 0.1 percent in New York after climbing the same amount earlier. They advanced a fifth day yesterday, the longest increase since August, after the Census Bureau said U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 3.6 percent annual rate in the third quarter. Employers probably added 185,000 workers to non-farm payrolls last month and unemployment slid to match a five-year low, economists said before separate data today.
“The U.S. non-farm payroll data will be the impetus for the oil market today,” Torbjorn Kjus, an Oslo-based senior oil analyst at DnB Markets, said by phone. “We won’t see much action before the figures are out.”
WTI for January delivery was at $97.24 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 14 cents, at 10:20 a.m. London time. The contract increased 18 cents to $97.38 yesterday, the highest close since Oct. 29. The volume of all futures traded was about 34 percent below the 100- day average. Prices gained 4.9 percent so far this week, the most since July 5.
Brent for January settlement advanced 45 cents to $111.43 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $14.32 to WTI. The spread was $13.60 yesterday, the narrowest based on closing prices since Nov. 19.
U.S. Economy
The U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer, will account for about 21 percent of global demand this year, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based adviser to 28 nations.
The economy’s GDP growth in the third quarter was the strongest since the first three months of 2012 and exceeded a median forecast of 3.1 percent in a Bloomberg News survey.
Crude inventories declined for the first time in 11 weeks, government data showed this week. Stockpiles fell by 5.59 million barrels to 385.8 million last week as U.S. refiners boosted processing, according to an Energy Information Administration report on Dec. 4. Supplies were projected to drop by 500,000 barrels.
Shipments of North Sea Brent and Oseberg crudes for January are set to fall by one cargo each from this month’s level, according to loading programs obtained by Bloomberg News. More North Sea export schedules will be released today.
Moving Average
WTI’s rally may stall along the 200-day moving average, said Ric Spooner, a chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, who predicts investors may sell West Texas contracts as prices approach $100 a barrel. The moving average is at about $98.51 a barrel today, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Investors often sell contracts when prices are near technical-resistance levels.
Crude may decline next week amid ample U.S. inventories and rising production, according to another Bloomberg survey. Fifteen of 25 analysts and traders, or 60 percent, predicted WTI will decrease through Dec. 13. Six respondents estimated futures will climb and four said there will be little change.
TransCanada Corp. told shippers yesterday that the Gulf Coast portion of its Keystone pipeline won’t be in service before mid-January, three days after it said in a letter to regulators that it anticipated starting on Jan. 3.
The pipeline section has the capacity to carry 700,000 barrels a day of crude to Port Arthur, Texas from Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI futures and the nation’s biggest oil-storage hub.
