Oil prices continued to fall on Tuesday morning, following a sell-off on Monday triggered by a stronger U.S. dollar, concerns over growing supply from non-OPEC producers, and signs of potential slower oil demand growth in China.
At 09:18 am CST on Tuesday, WTI was down 0.88 percent at US$47.17. For more crude oil prices, please head over to our Oil Price Charts page.
On Monday, oil prices dropped by 2.5 percent to their lowest close in three weeks, with WTI Crude settling at US$47.59, the lowest level since July 24.
At 10.71 million bpd, China's crude refineries saw in July their lowest daily throughput rate since September last year amid oversupply of fuels on the domestic market.
Now, the lowest refinery runs in 10 months, at a peak demand season, is creating some concern about Chinese oil demand growth.
Earlier on Monday, oil prices inched up on the news that the Zueitina oil terminal in Libya had ceased loading cargos as port workers protest, demanding better working conditions.
Also on the supply side, however, Shell's Nigerian unit on Monday lifted the force majeure on Bonny Light crude oil exports that had been in place since the middle of July. This added to the global oversupply concerns.
In the U.S., shale output is expected to further grow in September, by 117,000 bpd compared to August, with the Permian production jumping by 64,000 bpd and accounting for more than half of the expected increase.
According to a Reuters poll, U.S. crude stockpiles dropped last week for the seventh week in a row, and gasoline and distillate inventories were also likely down.
API is reporting industry data later on Tuesday, with the closely-watched EIA inventory report due out on Wednesday.
Last week, the EIA reported a draw in U.S. commercial crude oil inventories of 6.5 million barrels for the week to August 4, but on a more troubling note, the EIA calculated gasoline inventories had gone up by 3.4 million barrels, with daily production averaging 10.3 million barrels, basically flat on the previous week, when refineries processed some 17.4 million barrels of crude daily.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
