Oil down amid rising crude stockpile

LONDON, October 18, 2019 – Oil prices dropped on Friday in Asia after Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that US oil inventories rose much more than the market was expecting, while weak China GDP growth also weighed.

US Crude Oil WTI Futures lost 0.2% to $53.81 by 12:42 AM ET (04:42 GMT). International Brent Oil Futures fell 0.6% to $59.57.

Crude stockpiles jumped 9.3 million barrels last week, the EIA said. That compared to analysts’ expectations for a rise of about 2.9 million barrels, according to forecasts compiled by Investing.com.

But Gasoline inventories fell by 2.56 million barrels, versus expectations for a drawdown of about 1.21 million barrels. Distillate inventories fell by 3.8 million barrels, with analysts predicting a decline of about 2.4 million barrels.

In the third quarter, China’s economic growth slowed to 6% year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Friday.

Crude demand growth tends to closely follow economic growth.

“Concerns about softer growth in the demand for oil and doubts about OPEC‘s ability to rebalance the market on the current production cut rate will be key drags on prices in the near term,” ANZ Research said in a note.

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