Crude Oil at One-Year Low
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Crude oil futures settled at their lowest level in a year as traders sold the front-month contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange on its penultimate day of trade amid conflicting estimates of OPEC output.
Prices continued their fall in after-hours electronic trading, dipping below $56 a barrel after the close of open outcry, or floor trade. Last-minute selling of contracts before expiration can cause larger-than-usual declines if prices are otherwise falling.
Seaborne exports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ are expected to increase this month, tanker tracker Oil Movements said, contradicting an earlier estimate by another tracker.
“The conflicting reports about OPEC certainly don’t help” prices, an analyst and trader at BNP Paribas in New York, Tom Bentz, said. Mr. Bentz said Friday’s expiration of the frontmonth contract was the main driver of falling prices.
The front-month December light, sweet crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled $2.50, or 4.3%, lower at $56.26, the lowest settlement for a front month contract since November 18. Prices fell as low as $55.92 in electronic trading after settlement.
Crude prices hit their previous intraday low of $56.55 a barrel on October 20, the last day of trade of the November contract. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange fell $2.07 to $58.54 a barrel.
Technical selling was a big contributor to falling prices, a trader and analyst at Pioneer Futures in New York, Scott Meyers, said. “The selling came as a bit of a surprise after bullish inventory numbers,” on Wednesday, Mr. Meyers said. “It was strong in the morning but sold off after it couldn’t beat the previous day’s highs.”
The fall in crude dragged heating oil and gasoline blendstock futures down from gains on sliding stockpiles ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter.
December heating oil was down 3.19 cents, or 1.9%, to $1.6605 a gallon. Front month reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, fell 5.36 cents, or 3.4%, to $1.5411 a gallon and unleaded gasoline was down 5.25 cents at $1.5296 a gallon. According to Oil Movements’ weekly report, exports from OPEC are expected to rise by 210,000 barrels a day to 24.84 million barrels in the four weeks to November 4.
