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Oil falls to $ 80 in the vicinity before Fed meeting
Oil prices fell to near $80 a barrel Tuesday as Chinese imports dropped, another sign that the world’s third-largest economy is slowing, and investors looked to a Federal Reserve meeting for possible policy changes to boost U.S. growth.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for September delivery was
down $1.13 to $80.35 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York
Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 78 cents to settle at $81.48 on
Monday.
Stock markets were down in Asia and most of Europe after the
Chinese trade figures, which showed a monthly decline of oil imports in
July of 17.5 percent.
“Crude prices above $80 per barrel act to lower
buying interest from Chinese refiners, who witness a drop in
state-guaranteed margins beyond this threshold,” said a report from JBC
Energy in Vienna. “The latest decrease in imports also stems from lower
refinery demand due to maintenance. Oil demand from the Middle Kingdom
is likely entering a cool-down phase.”
Other experts were less
pessimistic, suggesting statistical anomalies and short-term issues were
behind the drop in Chinese oil imports.
“Worries regarding a lasting
weakening of demand seem to be premature,” said analysts at Commerzbank
in Frankfurt. “The distinct decline of imports compared to June can be
explained, on the one hand, with the record imports in the previous
month. In addition, there was a pipeline explosion in the port of Dalian
in the middle of July which temporarily affected imports.”
Oil
jumped out of the $70s to a three-month high last week and has held
above $80 despite a weak U.S. July employment report released Friday.
Traders are speculating the Fed may announce later Tuesday new stimulus
measures to keep the economy from slipping back into recession.
“At
this stage, we cannot imagine any set of numbers that this market will
not interpret bullishly,” Cameron Hanover said in a report. “Bullish
numbers are bullish and bearish numbers will force the Fed to do
something bullish.”
Traders have shrugged off rising U.S. crude
inventories as low interest rates encourage higher-risk investments.
Based only on supply and demand, oil should be trading between $20 and
$30, Cameron Hanover said.
“The best-heeled and biggest players can
borrow money without any cost,” Cameron Hanover said. “They have been
borrowing that money and plowing it into commodities.”
The American
Petroleum Institute (API) will issue its weekly oil inventory report
later Tuesday and the Energy Department’s Energy Information
Administration its own — the market benchkmark — on Wednesday.
Crude
oil stocks are forecast to fall by 2.4 million barrels, while gasoline
supplies are expected to drop by 1.5 million barrels, according to
analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill
Cos.
In other Nymex trading in September contracts, heating oil fell
3.05 cents to $2.1233 a gallon, gasoline dropped 2.34 cents to $2.0953 a
gallon and natural gas slid 1 cent to $4.299 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude was down $1.30 to $79.69 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Source: Associated Press
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