By Dow Jones Business News, January 07, 2015, 12:58:00 AM EDT
By Eric Yep
SINGAPORE--Oil prices fell slightly in Asian trade on Wednesday, extending losses and pushing the Brent crude benchmark even closer to the $50 a barrel mark.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February recently traded at $47.88 a barrel, down $0.05 in the Globex electronic session. February Brent crude on London'sICE Futures Exchange fell $0.30 to $50.80 a barrel.
The last time Brent crude settled below $50 a barrel was in April 2009. The global oil benchmark is down by about 11% so far this year.
While the current price rout has been driven mainly by oversupply, as Middle Eastern producers fight for market share with U.S. shale companies, it has raised concerns that demand itself may take a big hit this year.
Faltering demand is a continuing theme for the oil market. The U.S. Department of Energy has cut its 2015 global oil demand forecast by 800,000 barrels a day over the last six months, analyst Tim Evans at Citi Futures said in a report.
"However, there's still some risk of a further downward adjustment when the Department of Energy issues its short- term energy outlook next Tuesday," he said, citing weak economic and manufacturing data across world economies that increase the likelihood of further downgrades to forecasts for global oil demand.
Even Chinese oil imports, which for the most part held up in 2014 due to opportunistic buying and stockpiling needs, are unlikely to grow significantly this year.
While Chinese demand growth for petroleum products like diesel and gasoline will grow in 2015, its crude-oil imports are likely to slow, and "anyone hoping for China to drive a rebound in oil prices is likely to be disappointed," Citigroup analyst Ivan Szpakowski said.
"We expect [China's] crude-oil net imports to increase by only 200,000 barrels a day (3.3%) in 2015, significantly slower than the 504,000 barrels a day (8.9%) increase in 2014," he said.
Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute--a trade group--said U.S. oil inventories fell 4 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 2. The more closely watched inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration is due later Wednesday and analysts expect inventories to rise by 300,000 barrels.
On tap later today on the macro front are eurozone inflation numbers for December and the minutes from the December U.S. Federal Reserve meeting. Markets will be looking out for hints of a potential U.S. rate increase this year and any impact on the U.S. dollar will affect oil prices.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for February--the benchmark gasoline contract--fell 105 points to $1.3438 a gallon, while February diesel traded at $1.7034, 228 points lower.
ICE gasoil for January changed hands at $480.25 a metric ton, down $7.25 from Tuesday's settlement.
Write to Eric Yep at eric.yep@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires 01-07-150058ET Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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