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Bloomberg
Oil hit the lowest in a month after the US government data showed expanding crude stockpiles.
Futures fell as much as 3.2 percent in New York on Wednesday. Domestic crude inventories rose by more than twice the rate forecast by analysts last week, according to the Energy Information Administration. Stored supplies have been growing for four weeks, the longest streak of gains since early 2017.
Stockpiles also swelled at the nation’s key storage hub in Oklahoma to the highest since June.
“That’s a negative for oil prices right now, the larger-than-expected build in inventories this week,†said Rob Thummel, managing director at Tortoise, which manages $16 billion in energy-related assets.
West Texas Intermediate for November delivery dipped $2.09 to $69.83 a barrel at 10:49 am on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after
earlier falling to as low as $69.63. Total volume traded was about 30 percent above the 100-day average.
Brent for December settlement slid $1.96 to $79.45 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude was at a $9.67 premium to WTI for the same month.
The EIA report on Wednesday showed that stockpiles at the Cushing, Oklahoma, complex climbed by 1.78 million barrels last week. Front-month WTI futures traded at a 4-cent premium to its second-month contract, the smallest backwardation on a closing bases since June.
Oil exports dropped last week and crude production fell to 10.9 million barrels a day, showing the impact of limited production in the US Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Michael.