http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...ond-day-as-u-s-fuel-supplies-seen-rising.html
1/ West Texas Intermediate crude traded little changed <b>in its worst start to any year since 2009 </b>amid estimates U.S. fuel (Gasoline) stockpiles increased for a third week, signaling slowing demand in the worldâs biggest oil consumer.
2/ Futures declined 6.4 percent in New York since Dec. 31. Distillate inventories, including heating oil and diesel, probably rose by 1.38 million barrels last week, a Bloomberg News survey showed before Energy Information Administration data tomorrow.
Deutsche Bank AG lowered its 2014 forecasts for WTI and Brent amid ârampant U.S. oil-supply growth.â
âWeâre bearish for the first few months of the year,â said Frank Klumpp, an analyst at Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart, Germany. âThe market will be driven by the supply side in 2014. Maybe the trend of better-than-expected U.S. supplies will continue in 2014.â
WTI for February delivery rose as much as 53 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $92.33 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $92.16 at 1:09 p.m. London time. The volume of all futures traded was about 24 percent below the 100-day average. The contract fell 92 cents to $91.80 yesterday.
Brent for February settlement slipped 20 cents to $106.55 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark grade was at a premium of $14.40 to WTI.
Newest Estimates
Deutsche Bank predicts average prices in 2014 of $88.75 a barrel for WTI and $97.50 for Brent, a report e-mailed today showed, compared with respective previous projections of $98.75 and $106.25. The latest estimates are about $10 a barrel lower than 2013 levels, according to the bank.
âA third year of rampant U.S. oil-supply growth propelled by tight/shale oil developmentâ is âincreasingly painting a picture of an oversupplied global oil balance,â said Soozhana Choi, Deutsche Bankâs head of energy research in Washington.
WTI crude-options volatility jumped yesterday to the highest level since Nov. 29. Implied volatility for at-the-money March WTI options, a measure of expected futures movements and a key gauge of value, rose to 19.62 percent, up from 18.27 percent on Jan. 10.
WTI closed at an eight-month low of $91.66 a barrel on Jan. 9 amid surging crude output and reduced fuel use in the U.S. Production climbed by 24,000 barrels a day to 8.15 million in the week ended Jan. 3, the fastest rate since September 1988, according to the EIA, the Energy Departmentâs statistical arm.
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