TAIPEI (MarketWatch) — Nymex crude-oil futures eased in Asian trading hours Wednesday to give back some ground after staging a sharp rebound in New York the day before and despite a weaker tone for the U.S. dollar.
Front-month futures for light, sweet crude-oil futures CL1Q -0.08% slipped 34 cents, or 0.4%, to $97.09 a barrel on Globex.
The contract, for delivery in August, had jumped 2.4% on the New York Mercantile Exchange overnight as the dollar softened and as a recent fall in prices encouraged buyers.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had also said in a monthly report that its member nations increased their production to 29.6 million barrels a day in June, a rise of 0.5 million barrels from the level in May.
The cartel maintained its view for an upswing in demand this summer. However, the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration revised its own outlook for global demand lower.
The modest drop came even as the dollar index DXY -0.21% , which measures the greenback's performance against a basket of six other global currencies, slipped to 75.933 from 76.028 late in New York.
Meanwhile, natural-gas futures for August delivery NG11Q -0.18% also fell 1.3 cents, or 0.3%, to $4.32 per million British thermal units.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
