BB: Crude Holds Near $61 in New York Before Inventory Report
Oil held steady in New York around $61 a barrel before a weekly inventory report from the Energy Information Administration.
Supplies declined 2 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey before the report. U.S. President Barack Obama has scope to extend talks with Iran that could ease sanctions on the nation’s oil trade beyond a June 30 deadline, the State Department signaled.
Oil’s rebound from a six-year low has faltered amid speculation that an advance of almost 40 percent since March is spurring global supply. U.S. crude stockpiles are still almost 90 million barrels above the five-year average for this time of the year.
“The market is waiting for the EIA numbers,” said Michael Hiley, head of over-the-counter energy trading at LPS Partners Inc. in New York. “You are still sitting on a significantly high level of supplies.”
West Texas Intermediate for August delivery added 6 cents to $61.07 a barrel at 9:45 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Total volume was 43 percent below the 100-day average for the time of day.
U.S. Supplies
Brent for August settlement rose 5 cents to $64.50 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of $3.42 to WTI.
U.S. crude inventories slid to 467.9 million barrels through June 12, EIA data showed. Production averaged 9.59 million a day, near the fastest pace in weekly records compiled since January 1983.
Inventories dropped by 3.2 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to have reported Tuesday, according to ForexLive. Stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI futures, decreased by 2 million.
An extension of nuclear talks with Iran by days, or longer, seems increasingly likely as world powers involved have signaled doubt about their ability to resolve all the issues in the next week. International sanctions imposed in 2012 to contain Iran’s nuclear activity have cut its oil exports by about 50 percent.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out a decade-long freeze on the nation’s nuclear program Tuesday. International inspections of military sites and restrictions on Iranian nuclear work aren’t acceptable, he said in an address to senior government and military officials, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iran has estimated it could double oil exports from about 1 million barrels a day within six months of sanctions being lifted. Getting the right nuclear deal is “better than the deadline itself,” according to John Kirby, the U.S. State Department’s spokesman.
U.S. explorers have idled drilling rigs for 28 consecutive weeks, extending a record slide. Machines targeting oil fell to 631, the fewest since August 2010, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc., an oilfield-services company.
