LONDON--Crude-oil futures were little changed Wednesday as a weaker dollar and persistent worries over tight North Sea supplies counterbalanced a reported rise in U.S. crude stock inventories.
"The increase in oil prices has come to an end for the time being," said Commerzbank.
At 1049 GMT, the front-month September Brent contract on London's ICE futures exchange was 13 cents, or 0.1%, lower at $113.90 a barrel. The front-month September contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading down 23 cents, or 0.3%, at $93.20 per barrel.
"Brent has already exhausted itself last week, driven by expectations of a lower September output in the North Sea as well as some more geopolitical tensions and minor supply disruptions," said VTB Capital analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov.
Brent is now below Monday's three-and-a-half-month high, and "factors contributing to this included dwindling hopes of quantitative easing of U.S. monetary policy and a [recently] firmer U.S. dollar, plus an unexpected 2.8 million barrel rise in U.S. crude oil stocks last week, as reported by the [American Petroleum Institute] yesterday after close of trading," Commerzbank said in a note.
The U.S. Department of Energy will report official U.S. oil inventories numbers at 1430 GMT, and if they confirm the survey data reported by the API, an industry body, oil prices could feel additional downward pressure, analysts said. The U.S. is the world's largest oil consumer.
"But the API [survey] has been running below the DOE [numbers], hence it is not a given that the DOE will show the same stock variation," said Olivier Jakob, managing director of Swiss consultancy Petromatrix.
The September Brent contract will expire Thursday, and it will be the focus of many market participants, analysts said.
With the September contract trading almost $2-a-barrel higher than October, Brent needs to rally by that much to maintain stable price momentum on the continuous charts, Mr. Jakob said.
VTB's Mr. Kryuchenkov said, "In London, a sustained close above $114 would see gains to $116 and then all the way to $120. Otherwise, we see a little pullback here with support back at $111."
At 1049 GMT, the ICE's gasoil contract for September delivery was up $2.75, or 0.3%, at $960.25 a metric ton, while Nymex gasoline for September delivery was down 111 points, or 0.4%, at $3.0125 a gallon.
Write to Konstantin Rozhnov at konstantin.rozhnov@dowjones.com
