TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Crude-oil futures were mixed in Asia Thursday, with New York crude higher for most of the session and London crude mostly lower, as the investors took cues from external markets.
New York Mercantile Exchange light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $89.48 a barrel at 0637 GMT, up $0.14 in the Globex electronic session. October Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.17 to $115.63 a barrel.
Nymex crude rose above $90 a barrel for the first time since early August in early Asian hours after a report from the American Petroleum Institute showed an unexpectedly large draw in U.S. oil inventories last week. The industry group said U.S. oil stocks fell 3 million barrels, nearly double the 1.6 million-barrel draw that analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires are expecting.
But the price dipped briefly into the negative territory around midday, as the Australian dollar and Sydney stocks fell after a surprisingly weak jobs report and Shanghai shares slipped.
Traders will look for confirmation of the U.S. oil stock drawdown in the U.S. Department of Energy's oil inventory report, which is due at 1500 GMT. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech at 1530 GMT will also be in focus.
Neither the EIA data or Bernanke's speech will make much of a difference in the long term, given the recent large swings and continued bleak outlook of European and U.S. economies, Newedge Japan trader Masaki Suematsu said.
"All those in the market are taking only small positions, so as not to be too committed. We may see large swings today or tomorrow, but it'd be because the market is volatile" partly due to price moves that are exaggerated by algo trading, Suematsu said.
Crude will keep tracking equities as has been the case recently, and a sharp move for share prices will help crude to swing in the same direction, Nihon Unicom analyst Hiroyuki Kikukawa said.
The reliance on equity cues over fundamentals is partly due to speculative money flowing into commodity markets on the back of U.S. monetary policy, a phenomenon that will continue at least until mid-2013 due to the Fed's vow to keep monetary policy loose until then, he added.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for October--the benchmark gasoline contract--fell 9 points to $2.9071 a gallon, while October heating oil traded at $3.0678, 78 points lower.
ICE gasoil for September changed hands at $964.25 a metric ton, down $2.50 from Wednesday's settlement.
By Mari Iwata, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-6269-2798; mari.iwata@dowjones.com
