Oil Falls After Libya Output Back Online

Brent retreated after its biggest advance in three months as Libya continued to restore supplies and Saudi Arabia boosted crude sales in January.

Futures lost as much as 0.6 percent in London, after a 2.2 percent rally on Feb. 7 that was the largest since October. Libya, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, increased production after protests at the country’s Sharara field ended, according to National Oil Corp. Saudi Arabia, while trimming output last month, increased shipments to the market to 9.916 million barrels a day, according to a person with knowledge of the country’s supplies.

“With the partial recovery of Libyan supplies, the spare capacity of OPEC will be increasing and that scenario is not too far off,” said Andy Sommer, an analyst at Axpo Trading AG in Dietikon, Switzerland.

Brent for March settlement fell as much as 70 cents to $108.87 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange and was at $109.40 as of 1:28 p.m. London time. The European benchmark jumped $2.38, or 2.2 percent, to $109.57 on Feb. 7, the biggest daily increase since Oct. 28. It was at a premium of $9.61 a barrel to West Texas Intermediate. The spread on the ICE exchange widened for a third day on Feb. 7 to close at $9.69.

via Bloomberg

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