BLBG:WTI Crude Drops a Second Day, Erasing Its Weekly Advance
West Texas Intermediate crude fell for a second day, erasing its advance this week. The U.S. benchmark’s discount to London-traded Brent neared its narrowest in more than 14 months.
Futures dropped as much 1.4 percent in New York as Cyprus said it will ask the euro area for a bigger bailout, while investors awaited a report forecast to show U.S. retail sales stagnated in March. Oil prices may rebound next week, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. WTI’s discount to Brent shrank to as little as $10.40 a barrel today, the smallest gap on an intraday basis since Jan. 26, 2012.
“The supply balance is still a bit weak,” said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, who forecasts that WTI will average $96 a barrel this quarter. “We are close to the bottom, as we expect the market to tighten, but the bottoming-out process may take some time.”
WTI for May delivery declined as much as $1.26 to $92.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $92.32 at 10:24 a.m. London time. The volume of all futures traded was 36 percent greater than the 100-day average. The contract lost 1.2 percent yesterday, its biggest decline since April 4. Prices have fallen 0.4 percent this week, paring their gain this year to 0.5 percent.
Brent for May settlement, which expires on April 15, fell $1.37 cents to $102.90 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The more actively traded June future slid $1.44 to $102.94. The European benchmark grade was at a premium of $10.58 to WTI futures.
Retail Sales
Crude extended its drop as Cyprus’s President, Nicos Anastasiades, will seek an increase in the 10 billion euros ($13 billion) in aid pledged by the euro area, said a government official who asked not to be identified.
The U.S. Commerce Department publishes its report on retail sales due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington. The value of purchases was little changed in March, according to the median forecast of 85 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales increased 1.1 percent in February, their biggest gain in five months.
The contracting spread between WTI and Brent comes amid a weakening in the structure of the North Sea oil market.
Front-month Brent futures are trading today at a discount to the next month, a structure known as contango, for the fourth time in the past six days after North Sea production climbed with the end of oil-field maintenance and as refiners curbed operations during a seasonal lull in demand. The spread between the front two contracts was at 12 cents today.
First Contango
The shift into contango for the first time in nine months will last a short time and offers an opportunity to bet that the price will rebound, according to banks from Morgan Stanley to BNP Paribas SA.
Morgan Stanley predicted this “latest bout of Brent weakness will reverse,” while BNP Paribas recommended betting that the premium for short-term deliveries will resume as supplies become constrained.
“The underlying factors that had loosened a bit in the Brent market will shift,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas in London.
WTI may gain next week amid signs of improving U.S. employment, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Fourteen of 36 analysts and traders, or 39 percent, forecast that crude will increase through April 19. Thirteen respondents predicted a decline and nine projected little change. U.S. jobless claims dropped more than forecast in the week ended April 6, a Labor Department report showed yesterday.
Oil in New York has technical support along its middle Bollinger Band on the weekly chart, about $91.42 a barrel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Futures halted last week’s decline near that level, signaling that buy orders may be clustered around the indicator. Losses tend to accelerate when contracts breach a support level.
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
