Oil futures settled lower on Wednesday as a weekly drop in U.S. crude inventories wasn’t enough to ease the market’s concerns over the global supply glut. The Energy Information Administration reported a bigger-than-expected, second straight weekly decline in U.S. crude inventories, but data from the International Energy Agency showed that the world’s major oil producers continue to ramp up production.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, June crude settled at $60.50 a barrel, down 25 cents, or 0.4%. It was trading around $61.41 before the supply data and spiked to as high as $61.78 immediately afterward. June Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell 5 cents, or 0.1%, to $66.81 a barrel. The June Brent contract expires on Thursday.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration early Wednesday reported that crude supplies were down 2.2 million barrels for the week ended May 8. Analysts polled by Platts had forecast a smaller fall of 250,000 barrels. “Stockpiles are still 30% higher than the average for this time of year,” said John Macaluso, an analyst at Tyche Capital Advisors. “Furthermore, Saudi Arabia came out and stated it produced a record 10.3 [million barrels] per day in April,” he said. “Global oil supply is rising as a battle for market share continues to increase production.”
In a monthly report issued Wednesday, the IEA talked about that global battle for market share between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC producers. OPEC production rose above 31 million barrels a day in April and the IEA raised its 2015 forecast for non-OPEC output growth. Matt Parry, senior oil analyst at the IEA told MarketWatch that it’s “hard to see anything other than [supply] surpluses run right through 2015.”
Meanwhile, the EIA weekly data showed production in the lower 48 U.S. states was slightly higher on the week—at 8.870 million barrels a day vs. 8.854 million barrels a day the prior week, said Richard Hastings, macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities. “This along with the bearish views from the IEA oil market report…are containing any enthusiasm to the upside,” he said. “And indeed the upside remains quite limited, based on a huge surplus with a long time frame until the surplus situation is pulled in. This could easily take until October 2015, or into the next season, or April 2016.” The EIA also reported that gasoline supplies fell 1.1 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles also declined by 2.5 million barrels last week. Analysts polled by Platts looked for a rise of 170,000 for gasoline and an increase of 420,000 for distillates, which include heating oil.