Crude prices were seen dropping lower as futures for the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped on the last day of the trading week, dragged lower by the downbeat US retails sales in January and weekly jobless claims.
WTI for March delivery dropped 0.41% trading at $99.94 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at the time of writing. While Futures for the European benchmark Brent crude eased 0.23% to $108.54 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange at the same time.
Crude inventories from the developing countries declined by 1.5 million barrels per day in the last quarter of 2013, according to reports from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In a separate report released on Wednesday from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that US crude stockpiles climbed higher than expected.
The reports from the EIA also revealed crude inventories climbed by 3.27 million to 361.35 million barrels in the week ended February 2, exceeding analysts’ forecast of a rise of 2.63 million barrels.
Distillate stockpiles declined by 731,000 barrels to 113.1 million in the week ending February 7, reports from the EIA confirmed.
In Libya, oil production from the country dropped by more than 100,000 barrels per day, due to the shutdown of two pipelines by protesters, Ibrahim Al Awami, an oil Ministry official confirmed. Libya’s crude output fell to 460,000 barrels per day on Thursday, dropping from 567,000 barrels per day recorded on Tuesday.
The US retail sales dropped lower than expected in January, declining 0.4% lower in January, compared to the revised reading of a 0.1% decrease in December and the sharpest drop since June 2012.
Meanwhile, the initial US jobless claims for the week ending February 8 climbed to 339,000, compared to the previous reading of 331,000 seen in the previous month, according to reports from the Labour Department.
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