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The American Petroleum Institute (API) said on
Tuesday that U.S. crude stocks rose by 5.5 million barrels last
week, higher than the 2.9-million-barrel build expected by
analysts in a Reuters survey, to 480.2 million barrels. [EIA/S]
[API/S]
Stocks at the key delivery point of Cushing, Oklahoma rose by
572,000 barrels, the API said. Energy markets intelligence firm
Genscape said tanks at Cushing were nearly 80 percent full.
Brent crude for June delivery was down 45 cents at $61.63 a
barrel by 1015 GMT, while U.S. crude for June delivery fell 51
cents to $56.10 a barrel.
"You have a considerable build in the U.S.," said Olivier Jakob,
chief analyst at Swiss-based consultancy Petromatrix.
"There has been a lot of waiting and hoping for the first drop
of stocks in Cushing and that has not happened yet," he said.
Official U.S. stocks data will be issued by the government's
Energy Information Administration (EIA) at 1430 GMT on
Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia said it was ending a month-long military campaign
against the Houthi rebels who had seized large areas of Yemen,
bringing hope of a political solution to the conflict in the
oil-producing region.
Oil prices had gained nearly $10 a barrel this month on tensions
in the Middle East and concerns over slowing output growth in
the United States, before starting to drop back.
Prices are unlikely to plumb new depths this year, however,
leading commodity traders said on Tuesday, citing strengthening
demand.
"We will probably see one more dip in the second quarter but
prices probably won't go below this year's lows," said Ian
Taylor, head of the world's top oil trader, Vitol.
Executive Chairman Gary Ross, of the PIRA Energy Group
consultancy, said in an interview: "The world has been focused
for the last six months on destroying supply."
"Increasingly the mindset is going to change. They'll have to
start thinking about creating supply again, and that's going to
mean a lot higher prices than today," he said.
(Additional reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Singapore;
Editing by Dale Hudson and Pravin Char)
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