Oil Weaker in Asia as Demand Lower than Supply

Oil prices remained low in early Asian trading on Tuesday following a slide of almost 3 percent the previous session, dragged down as concerns over Asia’s economic health mounted and as production remained high.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were at $47.31 per barrel at 0138 GMT, down 3 cents from their last close and following a more than 2.5-percent drop on Monday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 were at $44.44 a barrel, virtually unchanged from their last settlement.

Oil prices, along with most other commodities, have fallen sharply recently, with crude futures losing almost 60 percent of their value since June 2014.

Japanese stock markets, among the earliest to open in Asia, slid to eight-month lows on Tuesday as global stocks came under pressure from worries about economies in China and other emerging markets.

“China’s industrial profits declined 8.8 percent in August from a year earlier, with the biggest drops concentrated in producers of coal, oil and metals,” ANZ said on Tuesday.

“These declining margins are likely to add to the global deflationary story, where declining domestic demand is forcing companies to export deflation to the rest of the world.”

On the supply side, Russia’s 2015 oil production is expected to increase slightly from last year to 526 million tonnes, or 10.56 million barrels per day (bpd), deputy minister for natural resources and ecology Denis Khramov said on Tuesday.

Via Reuters

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