MW: Crude falls below $68 a barrel as demand concerns weigh
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures fell below $68 a barrel Thursday, briefly hitting the lowest level in more than a month as concerns over weak demand continued to weigh on sentiment among energy traders.
Crude for November delivery fell $1.10, or 1.6%, to $67.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract earlier hit an intraday low of $67.53, the lowest level for a front-month contract since Aug. 18.
Thursday's decline followed oil's 4% drop in the previous session, after a government weekly report showed weak oil demand and higher crude imports pushed up U.S. crude inventories.
Inventories of crude-oil, gasoline and other petroleum products all rose last week, the Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday.
Gasoline supplied, an implied gauge of consumption, fell to 8.79 million barrels a day, the lowest level since late January. Crude imports averaged 9.8 million barrels a day last week, up 10% from a week ago, EIA data showed.
"Bearish EIA inventory numbers once again highlighted oil consumption is in no way recovering as well as the broader economic conditions are," wrote Nimit Khamar, analyst at Sucden Financial Research, in a note to clients.
Other energy futures also moved lower Thursday. October-reformulated gasoline fell 4.12 cents, or 2.4%, to $1.6637 a gallon, and October heating oil lost 3.1 cents, or 1.8%, to $1.7281 a gallon.
October natural gas lost 8.9 cents, or 2.3%, to $3.771 per million British thermal units.
"The entire [energy] quarter has been one of rangebound price dynamics, and this last release of the quarter provides little ammunition for any immediate change," said Amrita Sen, an analyst at Barclays Capital, in a note.
The EIA will report data on natural-gas inventories later Thursday morning. Analysts surveyed by Platts expect an addition of between 66 billion and 70 billion cubic feet for gas in storage for the week ended Sept. 18.
In economic news, first-time filings for state unemployment benefits fell sharply in the latest week to the lowest level in ten weeks.
For the week ended September 19, initial claims fell 21,000 to 530,000. This is the lowest level since the week ended July 11 and the second lowest weekly reading all year. See full story.
In exchange-traded funds, the United States Oil Fund (USO 34.67, -0.46, -1.31%) lost 0.2%, and the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG 11.66, -0.02, -0.17%) slid 0.2%.
