Oil Unchanged as it Balances Libya Field and High Inventories

West Texas Intermediate was little changed as rising U.S. crude stockpiles offset signs of diminished OPEC supply. Brent fluctuated in London.

U.S. crude inventories expanded last week by the most since April to 362.3 million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration. Libya’s Sharara field, the OPEC member’s biggest-producing asset, and the connected Zawiya refinery are still shut, Oil Movement Director Mansur Abdallah said. The Federal Reserve raised estimates for interest rates yesterday.

“The nationwide build of 3.67 million barrels likely helped set the bearish tone for trading in the U.S.,” David Wech, an analyst at JBC Energy GmbH in Vienna, said in a report. The “expected tightening of U.S. monetary policy” is weighing on the outlook for global economic growth, he said.

WTI for October delivery rose 15 cents to $94.57 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 1:52 p.m. local time, after dropping earlier to $93.62. The volume of all futures traded was about 2 percent below the 100-day average. Prices have decreased 3.9 percent this year.

Brent for November settlement declined 7 cents to $98.90 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $5.51 to WTI for the same month.

via Bloomberg

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency 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.
Alfonso Esparza