WTI Drops From One-Week High as U.S. Crude Supplies Climb

By Ben Sharples

West Texas Intermediate fell from the highest price in almost a week after U.S. crude stockpiles increased to the largest since 1981 and Chinese imports of the commodity dropped.

Futures slipped as much as 0.5 percent in New York, heading for the first decline in three days, after the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute said inventories gained 5.1 million barrels last week. An Energy Department report today may show supplies advanced 1.5 million barrels to about 391 million, also the highest in 22 years, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. China’s net crude imports slid to the lowest in six months in March, customs data showed.

“Demand in the U.S. is still very weak and we can’t see any change to that,” said David Lennox, an analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney. “That’s on the back of continued low economic activity and high unemployment. There is probably no reason why the Energy Department figures will be any different” to the API data, he said.

WTI for May delivery slid as much as 44 cents to $93.76 a barrel in electronic trading on theNew York Mercantile Exchange and was at $93.82 at 3:01 p.m. Singapore time. The volume of all futures traded was 50 percent below the 100-day average. The contract increased 84 cents to $94.20 yesterday, the biggest gain since March 26 and the highest close since April 3. Prices are up 2.2 percent this year.

Brent for May settlement was down 15 cents at $106.08 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark was at a premium of $12.26 to WTI futures, up from yesterday’s close of $12.03. It settled at $11.30 on April 8, the narrowest gap since June 22.

China Crude Imports

China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer, bought 22.78 million metric tons of crude more than it exported last month, according to figures released on the website of the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs today. That’s equivalent to net imports of 5.39 million barrels a day, the least since September, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

U.S. gasoline supplies rose 1.96 million barrels last week, the API said. They are forecast to fall1.5 million barrels in the government report, according to the median estimate of 11 analysts in the Bloomberg survey. Distillate inventories, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, slid 1.3 million barrels in the API report, compared with a projected 1.5 million barrel decline in the survey.

Price Forecast

The API collects stockpile information on a voluntary basis from operators of refineries, bulk terminals and pipelines. The government requires that reports be filed with the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department’s statistics unit, for its weekly survey.

The EIA increased its WTI price forecast for 2013, predicting new pipeline and rail capacity will narrow the grade’s discount to Brent. New York crude will average $93.92 a barrel this year, up 2.2 percent from the March projection of $91.92, the EIA said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook yesterday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net

source

please give me comments thanks