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Oil futures fell early Wednesday, unable to find support after industry data showed a fall in crude and product inventories as investors continued to fret over the demand outlook.
Price action
-
West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery
CL.1,
-1.90% CLK23,
-1.90%
fell $1.61, or 2%, to $79.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. June WTI
CL00,
-1.93% CLM23,
-1.93% ,
the most actively traded contract, was down $1.57, or 1.9%, at $79.33 a barrel. -
June Brent crude
BRN00,
-1.92% BRNM23,
-1.92% ,
the global benchmark, dropped $1.62, or 1.9%, to *3.15 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. -
Backon Nymex, May gasoline
RBK23,
-1.93%
was down 1.9% at $2.699 a gallon, while May heating oil
HOK23,
-1.44%
was off 1.4% at $2.544 a gallon. -
May natural gas
NGK23,
-3.55%
declined 1% to $2.342 per million British thermal units.
Market drivers
Oil futures eked out tiny gains Wednesday, failing to find much support off data that showed China’s gross domestic product expanded by a larger-than-expected 4.5% in the first quarter.
The price action showed “there are clearly still some concerns over the demand outlook. Weaker refinery margins will be adding to these concerns,” said Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING, in a note.
Traders also appeared to be brushing off seemingly bullish supply data. The American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a 2.7 million barrel decline in U.S. crude inventories last week, according to a source citing the data, while gasoline stocks dropped 1 million barrels and distillates declined 1.9 million barrels.
Official government data on inventories is due Wednesday morning. Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Commodity Insights, on average, look for crude inventories to show a fall of 400,000 barrels, while gasoline stocks were seen down 1.6 million barrels and distillates falling 600,000 barrels.
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