West Texas Intermediate traded near the highest level in four days amid speculation motor-fuel inventories shrank in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer. Brent was steady in London.
Futures were little changed in New York from the close of Oct. 17. Gasoline stockpiles fell by 1.45 million barrels to a two-year low, a Bloomberg News survey shows before government data tomorrow. WTI rebounded on Oct. 16 from the lowest intraday price since June 2012 after the Energy Information Administration reported a 4 million drop that more than double the median analyst estimate. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said last week that there’s no oversupply to justify the sell-off.
Oil is paring its collapse into a bear market as banks including BNP Paribas SA and Bank of America Corp. predict the rout may be over. They’re in part counting on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce supply as the U.S. pumps the most oil in almost three decades and Russia’s output rises to a near a post-Soviet record.
“If OPEC doesn’t cut, the market will go lower,” David Lennox, a resource analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney, said by phone today. “The U.S. won’t stop production. It’s the supply-demand scenario affecting the market.”
WTI for December delivery, the most-actively traded, was at $82.15 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 24 cents, at 3:30 p.m. Sydney time. The November contract, which expires today, gained 29 cents to $83. The volume of all futures traded was 36 percent below the 100-day average. Front-month prices have decreased 16 percent this year.
Fuel Stockpiles
Brent for December settlement was 12 cents higher at $85.52 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of $3.37 to WTI for the same month, compared with a close of $3.49 yesterday.
U.S. gasoline inventories probably declined to 204.2 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 17, according to the median projection in the Bloomberg survey of eight analysts. Distillate supplies, which include heating oil and diesel, are projected to have slid by 1.5 million.
Crude stockpiles are forecast to have increased by 3 million barrels to 373.6 million, the survey shows. Production climbed to 8.95 million a day previously, the most since June 1985, said the EIA, the Energy Department’s statistical arm.
Total CEO
The American Petroleum Institute in Washington will publish separate supply data today. The industry group collects information on a voluntary basis from operators of refineries, bulk terminals and pipelines, while the government requires that reports be filed with the EIA.
OPEC’s largest producers are responding to the slump in futures by cutting export prices, bolstering speculation that they will compete for market share rather than reduce supply. The group, which pumps about 40 percent of the world’s crude, is scheduled to meet Nov. 27 in Vienna.
In Moscow, Total SA’s Christophe de Margerie was killed when his airplane struck a snowplow on a runway, ending a career in which he oversaw the biggest expansion of oil reserves at the French energy giant in at least 15 years. The 63-year-old chief executive officer died at Vnukovo Airport in the crash that also claimed the lives of three crew members and the driver of the plow, the company said in a statement on its website.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Yee Kai Pin at kyee13@bloomberg.net Alexander Kwiatkowski
Press spacebar to pause and continue. Press esc to stop.
0 comments:
Post a Comment