BLBG:WTI Drops From One-Week High as U.S. Crude Supplies Climb
West Texas Intermediate halted a two-day advance as a report showed stockpiles of U.S. crude increased to the highest level since 1981.
Futures slipped as much as 0.5 percent in New York after the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute said inventories gained 5.1 million barrels last week. An Energy Department report today may show supplies advanced 1.5 million barrels to about 391 million, the highest in 22 years, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts. China’s net crude imports slid to the lowest in six months in March, customs data showed.
“The second quarter is the weakest from the perspective of oil global demand,” said Hannes Loacker, an analyst at Raiffeisen Bank International AG in Vienna. Brent crude may drop further, he said. The blend slumped 5.4 percent last week.
WTI for May delivery slid as much as 44 cents to $93.76 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $94.03 at 10:20 a.m. London time. The volume of all futures traded was 29 percent less than the 100-day average. The contract increased 84 cents to $94.20 yesterday, its biggest gain since March 26 and the highest close since April 3.
Brent for May settlement lost 23 cents to $106 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark had a premium of $11.97 to WTI, down from $12.03 at yesterday’s close. The premium settled at $11.30 on April 8, the narrowest since June 22.
Gasoline Supplies
U.S. gasoline supplies increased by 1.96 million barrels last week, the API said. They are forecast to fall 1.5 million barrels in the government report due at 10:30 a.m. in Washington, according to the median estimate of 11 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Distillate inventories, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, slid 1.3 million barrels in the API report, compared with a projected 1.5 million-barrel decline in the Energy Department’s report.
“Demand in the U.S. is still very weak and we can’t see any change to that,” said David Lennox, an analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney. “That’s on the back of continued low economic activity and high unemployment. There is probably no reason why the Energy Department figures will be any different” to the API data, he said.
Price Forecast
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 Information Administration, the Energy Department’s statistics unit, for its weekly survey.
The EIA increased its WTI price forecast for 2013 late yesterday, predicting new pipeline and rail capacity will narrow the grade’s discount to Brent. New York crude will average $93.92 a barrel this year, up 2.2 percent from a March projection of $91.92, the EIA said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook yesterday.
China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer, bought 22.78 million metric tons of crude more than it exported last month, according to figures released on the website of the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs today. That’s equivalent to net imports of 5.39 million barrels a day, the fewest since September, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss on sev@bloomberg.net
