U.S. Oil Prices Flat Ahead of Inventory Data

By Cassie Werber 

NEW YORK--U.S. oil futures traded near flat Wednesday after an industry group reported an unexpected drop in domestic oil supplies.

The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that its data showed that U.S. oil supplies fell by 6.5 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 19.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its data for the same week at 10:30 a.m. EDT, and analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect the agency to report a 500,000-barrel increase in supplies.

Prices rose in late trading after the API data was released.

However, "the draw was primarily the result of a large decline in crude-oil imports, which will likely be somewhat reversed in next week's report," said Dominick Chirichella, analyst at the Energy Management Institute in a note.

The API also said gasoline supplies rose by 91,000 barrels, while distillate inventories rose by 3 million barrels. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal called for a 200,000-barrel drop in gasoline supplies and a 300,000-barrel gain in distillate stocks.

Light, sweet oil for November delivery recently traded up 12 cents, or 0.1%, at $91.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Meanwhile, Brent crude traded lower as renewed supplies from Libya flowed into a market already loaded with oil. November Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange recently fell 51 cents, or 0.5%, to $96.34 a barrel.

A price slide over the summer, which leveled off last week, is back, with oil falling every day this week amid "signs of very ample supply on the oil market in the near future," wrote analysts at Commerzbank in a note.

Libya's Sharara oil field reopened Monday, allowing production to rise back up to 800,000 barrels a day, while Iraqi oil exports have continued to be strong and Nigeria's prospective exports are also high.

"All of this, coupled with weak demand in Europe, is putting pressure above all on Brent contracts with maturity dates in the near future," Commerzbank said.

Front-month October reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, recently fell 0.97 cent, or 0.4%, to $2.6190 a gallon. October diesel fell 1.44 cents, or 0.5%, to $2.6688 a gallon.

Write to Nicole Friedman at [e-mail] and Cassie Werber at [e-mail]

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires