By Cassie Werber
Oil prices were close to flat Tuesday morning, and less volatile
than in the previous session, which saw intimations of an
oversupplied first half of next year rock prices.
Recently Brent crude oil for December delivery was trading down
2 cents at $85.81 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. WTI crude for
delivery in December was up 6 cents at $81.06 a barrel on the New
York Mercantile Exchange.
Fears of oversupply prompted Goldman Sachs Monday to scale back
its price forecasts for the beginning of 2015, sending a bearish
message to markets.
There is still no sign of an intervention from the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"At the moment, there is little to suggest that OPEC will do
something about the oversupply on the market," said Commerzbank in
a note to clients. "A high-ranking official of Iran's state-owned
oil company said it was unlikely that OPEC would lower the official
production target at its meeting in late November."
But there has been some brighter macroeconomic data recently,
said Energy Aspects, writing that "underlying demand is definitely
starting to improve, with Chinese products demand rising to a
record high in September, while Indian and South Korean demand also
improved."
Much of the rising demand has been in products including
gasoline, they said.
A weekly oil inventories report from the American Petroleum
Institute due later in the global day could provide an insight
about the levels of oil supplies ahead of the official Department
of Energy data Wednesday, said Myrto Sokou, senior research analyst
at Sucden Financial.
Recently ICE gas oil for delivery in November was down 75 cents
$737.00 a metric ton, while gasoline was up 13 points at $2.1359 a
gallon.
Write to Cassie Werber at cassie.werber@wsj.com
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