Oil futures headed toward their lowest settlement in two weeks on Thursday, after U.S. government data showed a hefty weekly increase in crude stockpiles on the back of a further slowdown in refinery activity.
November West Texas Intermediate crude traded at $45.35 U.S. a barrel, down $1.28, or 2.7%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices haven’t settled at a level that low since Oct. 1.
November Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell 84 cents, or 1.7%, to $48.31 U.S. a barrel on the contract’s expiration day. December will become the front-month contract. It was down 86 cents at $48.83 U.S. a barrel.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Thursday an increase of 7.6 million barrels in crude supplies for the week ended Oct. 9. Analysts polled by Platts expected supplies to be up by 1.8 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute Wednesday said inventories jumped 9.3 million barrels, according to sources.
The jump in stockpiles came as refinery utilization fell to 86% of capacity, from 87.5% a week earlier, EIA data showed.
With utilization falling, gasoline supplies also declined by 2.6 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles eased by 1.5 million barrels last week, according to the EIA.
The EIA report showed that weekly total U.S. oil production fell 76,000 barrels a day to roughly 9.1 million barrels a day.
Back on Nymex, November gasoline fell 2.4 cents, or 1.8%, to $1.285 U.S. a gallon and November heating oil fell 2.7 cents, or 1.8%, to $1.457 U.S. a gallon.
Natural-gas prices, meanwhile, also declined after a separate EIA report Thursday showed that supplies of natural gas rose 100 billion cubic feet for the week ended Oct. 9. Analysts polled by Platts forecast a climb of between 91 billion cubic feet and 95 billion cubic feet.
November natural gas fell 4.7 cents, or 1.9%, to $2.471 U.S. per million British thermal units. It was trading at around $2.571 U.S. before the supply report.
Traders have also been looking to U.S. economic data for clues on the outlook for energy demand.
Data Thursday showed that weekly jobless claims edged lower to match a 42-year low and the consumer-price index fell by a seasonally-adjusted 0.2% in September. For October, Business activity in the New Year region fell for a third straight month and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index stayed negative for a second straight month.
