“Oil traded near its lowest level in almost a week in New York as a forecast that U.S. crude supplies increased balanced optimism that a new agreement on aid for Greece will help resolve Europe’s debt turmoil.
Futures were little changed, paring an earlier advance of as much as 0.6 percent. U.S. crude inventories probably rose 500,000 barrels last week, a Bloomberg News survey of analysts before an Energy Department report tomorrow showed. European Union ministers agreed to help Greece manage its debt burden in talks in Brussels that lasted 13 hours, an EU official said early today. The OECD cut growth forecasts and warned of the risk of a “major” global recession.
“The positive outcome on Greece has already been priced in,” said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London who predicts Brent crude may slide to $110 a barrel this month. “Now attention is turning to fundamentals and they are far from ideal.”
Crude for January delivery was at $87.91 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 12:13 p.m. London time, having gained as much as 51 cents to $88.25 a barrel. The contract decreased 54 cents yesterday to $87.74, the lowest since Nov. 21. Prices are down 11 percent this year.
Brent for January settlement rose 16 cents to $111.08 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark contract was at a premium of $23.17 to West Texas Intermediate, compared with $23.18 yesterday.”
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