U.S. Oil Prices Enter Bear-Market Territory
U.S. oil prices entered bear-market territory Monday, settling at $40.06 a barrel after dipping below $40, down 22% from the market’s June high.
Prices have been sliding as lower Saudi Arabian prices and signs of strong supply join a deluge of oil and refined products that has been sending oil lower for weeks.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery settled down $1.54, or 3.7%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Its recent high was $51.23 on June 8.
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Brent, the global benchmark, was recently down $1.53 cents, or 3.5%, to $42 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. Both markets were down for the seventh time in eight sessions
A combination of an expanding global gasoline glut, early signs of increasing production in the U.S., and rising output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have dragged down oil prices by around 20% since they broke above $50 in June. The number of working rigs has in the U.S. has also gone up eight times in nine weeks—with the most recent count coming late Friday—adding to a sense that the oversupply problems that have hit oil for two years aren’t going away.
An oil pumpjack in Sweetwater, Texas. Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate prices both fell in Monday trade.Photo: Getty Images
Monday’s renewed selling is coming in part from Saudi Aramco this weekend cutting its export price to Asia by the most in 10 months, analysts and a broker said. New data show Iraqi and Iranian oil production increased in July, too, and on Sunday Libya’s state-owned National Oil Co. said it “unconditionally” welcomed a deal between Libya’s unity government and the Petroleum Facilities Guard to reopen three eastern ports.
Russian supply has also been increasing for three straight months and U.S. supply appears to be coming in above weekly government estimates, analysts at Citigroup Inc. said in a note Monday morning. This all makes it possible that oil could fall further before an increasing chance of a recovery next year, they said.
“This crude overhang is materializing just as a gasoline glut is pressuring refinery margins,” they said.
Many expect refineries to slow their crude buying in the weeks to come because they have produced even more gasoline and other fuels than record demand could absorb. There have been reports about backed up gasoline and product markets around the world. Refineries also usually slow in the fall for maintenance, and many expect outages to be more prolonged this year because of the glut.
The recent selloff accelerated last week after U.S. gasoline stocks rose 452,000 barrels to hit nearly 242 million barrels in the week ended July 22, a time when gasoline stocks usually fall.
“We continue to be cautious for the rest of this year,” Société Générale SA analyst Michael Wittner said in a note Friday that was released to reporters Monday morning.
While demand has been high, it has also been disappointing and could continue to be, analysts at Barclays PLC said in a note on Monday. Government data in the U.S. shows demand there from January to May grew by about 2.5%, but earlier signs from weekly data back in May had suggested it would be almost twice that, they said. Floods in China are also hitting major areas for consumption and could lower demand there by about 100,000 barrels a day.
“Demand growth remains lackluster and has not made significant inroads to clear the inventory overhang for oil,” the Barclays analysts added. “There is no better time to do that during the summer, but summer is already halfway over.”
—Jenny W. Hsu contributed to this article.
Write to Timothy Puko at
tim.puko@wsj.com