BLBG:Oil Trades Near Eight-Week Low on Rising U.S. Crude Inventories
Oil traded near the lowest price in almost two months in New York after an industry report showed stockpiles rose for a third week in the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer of crude.
Futures swung between gains and losses after dropping yesterday for a second day. U.S. inventories increased by 6.6 million barrels last week, according to the American Petroleum Institute. An Energy Department report today may show they rose by 2 million to the highest level for this time of year since 1990, according to a Bloomberg survey. The U.S. cut its price forecast for domestic and imported grades used by its refiners because of rising output in Canada and North Dakota.
“The increasing crude oil inventories are a factor for prices falling from a fundamental point of view,” said Ken Hasegawa, a commodities-derivatives sales manager at Newedge Group in Tokyo. “Not only that, the sentiment of the oil market is getting weaker along with the financial markets.”
Oil for May delivery was at $101.20 a barrel, up 18 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 1:41 p.m. in Singapore. The contract yesterday declined 1.4 percent, to $101.02, the lowest close since Feb. 14. Prices are up 2.5 percent this year.
Brent oil for May settlement rose 22 cents to $120.10 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark contract’s premium to New York-traded West Texas Intermediate was at $18.89. The spread yesterday was $18.86 after shrinking 6.7 percent, the most since Feb. 20.
Technical Rebound
Oil in New York may be halting its decline as a technical indicator shows futures have fallen too quickly and further losses may not be sustainable, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. On the daily chart, stochastic oscillators are below 30 and today’s reading is the lowest since June last year. Investors tend to buy when prices are considered oversold.
U.S. crude stockpiles are forecast to climb to 364.4 million barrels in the seven days ended April 6, according to the median estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Gasoline supplies are projected to decline by 1.38 million barrels, while the API data showed a gain of 1.18 million barrels. Inventories of distillates, a category that includes diesel and heating oil, may drop 250,000 barrels, compared with a decline of 476,000 barrels in the API report.
The API collects stockpile information on a voluntary basis from operators of refineries, bulk terminals and pipelines. The government requires that reports be filed with the Energy Department for its weekly survey.
Price Cut
U.S. gasoline demand declined 0.8 percent last week from the prior seven days and consumption slipped below year-earlier levels for the 32nd consecutive week, MasterCard Inc. (MA) said in its SpendingPulse report yesterday. Drivers bought 8.8 million barrels a day of the fuel in the seven days ended April 6, down from 8.87 million the prior week, the report showed.
The average cost of crude used by U.S. refiners will be $112.19 a barrel in 2012, down 2.1 percent from last month’s projection of $114.58, the Energy Department said yesterday in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook. Rising North American production is the primary reason for the revision, said Tancred Lidderdale, an economist with the department’s Energy Information Administration, who helped write the report.
Iran Talks
Oil has climbed 2.4 percent this year amid speculation that a dispute between Iran and the West over the Persian Gulf’s nuclear program will disrupt supplies from the Middle East. The U.S. and its European allies will press Iran for action to curb its nuclear program when talks resume this week after a 15-month hiatus. Nuclear negotiations between Iran and the five permanent United Nations Security Council members plus Germany will start April 14 in Istanbul.
The Islamic republic has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a transit route for a fifth of the world’s crude, in response to a U.S. and European embargo.
Concern that the euro-region debt crisis will spread, curbing economic growth, also weighed on oil prices yesterday.
Spanish bonds tumbled and the yield on 10-year government debt climbed to the highest since Dec. 12. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos declined to rule out a rescue for the country, and Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said the nation’s lenders may need more capital if the economy weakens more than expected. Italian bonds also fell.
“People are starting to question the global recovery,” said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive of Barratt’s Bulletin, a commodity markets newsletter in Sydney. “The erosion of the Middle Eastern premium is helping prices lower along with weak economic sentiment and that should see $100 a barrel tested.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net
