Crude-oil futures fell more than 5% Tuesday to their lowest settlement level in nearly a week as concerns about a persistent supply glut resurfaced ahead of weekly U.S. inventory updates.
Light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $2.84, or 5.4%, to settle at $50.02 a barrel. That was the lowest settlement level since Feb. 4. Prices for the U.S. benchmark had tallied a climb of nearly 9% over the past three trading sessions, partly due to expectations that declines in active drilling rigs would help ease the oil supply surplus. Brent crude for March delivery the international benchmark, closed down $1.91, or 3.3% at $56.43 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
The International Energy Agency, in its medium-term outlook released Tuesday, said it expects Brent to average $55 a barrel in 2015, edging up to $60 in 2016 and hitting $73 by 2020. The group also said that a price recovery seemed “inevitable,” with the oil glut starting to ease as soon as the second half of the year.
By comparison, the U.S. Energy Information Administration in a monthly report issued Tuesday forecast an average of $58 for Brent crude and $55 for West Texas Intermediate crude in 2015 — unchanged from the previous report. Although the IEA trimmed its long-term supply forecasts, “it cut its demand estimates too and warned that lower oil prices won’t necessarily boost demand growth as strongly as it might be expected,” said Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at Forex.com, in a note. Still, a monthly report Monday from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries showed a reduction in non-OPEC supply growth estimates as well as a modest boost to the group’s world oil consumption forecast for this year.
Oil prices have fallen more than 50% since June on surging output. Both crude benchmarks have rebounded nearly 20% since late January, but investors are skeptical about whether gains can be sustained. A drop in China’s inflation to a five-year low, indicating slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy, also put pressure on oil prices Tuesday, according to Phillip Futures analyst Daniel Ang. Meanwhile, data this week are expected to show another weekly increase in U.S. oil supplies to record levels and investors remain jittery about Greece’s debt problems in the eurozone.
Analysts polled by Platts expect reports late Tuesday from the American Petroleum Institute and early Wednesday from the Energy Information Administration to show that crude supplies rose 3.4 million barrels for the week ended Feb. 6. They also expect a drawdown of 250,000 barrels for gasoline stocks and a fall of 1.3 million barrels for distillate inventories.