Oil drops towards $65 a barrel as Libya’s biggest field restarts
Opec-led supply cuts prop up the market as US crude inventories are expected to rise
London — Oil fell towards $65 a barrel on Tuesday, pressured by the restart of Libya’s biggest oilfield and on expectations for an increase in US crude inventories. Some wells at Libya’s El Sharara oilfield have restarted and the aim is to reach initial output of 80,000 barrels per day (bpd), a field engineer said on Tuesday. The field had been closed since December. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 62c to $65.05 a barrel as of 9.30am GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude slipped 44c to $56.15. “The main development has been the restart of El Sharara,” said Olivier Jakob, analyst at PetroMatrix. “It’s a new input which is on the bearish side.” Oil also slipped on forecasts that the latest round of US inventory reports will show rising crude stockpiles. Six analysts polled by Reuters estimated, on average, that crude stocks rose 400,000 barrels in the week to March 1. The first supply report is due at 9.30pm GMT from the American Petroleum Institute (API), an indu...
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