West Texas Intermediate crude fell a second day on speculation that a government report will show U.S. supplies rose an eighth week. Brent was stable in London.
Futures slid as much as 0.6 percent in New York. Crude stockpiles are forecast to have gained 2 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey before an Energy Information Administration report tomorrow. U.S. output climbed to the highest level since 1988 in January. Brent held near $108 a barrel as the European Union told Russia it must switch course in Crimea by next week or risk more sanctions.
“The fundamentals for WTI are weak,” said Gene McGillian an analyst and broker at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. “Crude production in the U.S. is near multidecade highs, and as a result, storage levels are increasing,”
WTI for April delivery dropped 45 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $100.67 a barrel at 9:43 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures are up 2.3 percent this year. The volume of all futures traded was 7.9 percent above the 100-day average.
Brent for April settlement rose 5 cents to $108.13 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Volume was 14 percent below the 100-day average. The European benchmark traded at a $7.46 premium to WTI. The spread settled at $6.96 yesterday.
via Bloomberg
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Alfonso Esparza
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
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