Oil prices fall after industry report shows stock build
US benchmark crude CLc1 was down 26 cents at $45.55 a barrel at 0208 GMT.
Oil futures fell on Wednesday after an industry report showed an unexpected build in US crude stocks, paring some of their gains of nearly 6 percent from the session before. Oil prices had surged on Tuesday as members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) were set to renew efforts to efforts to agree concrete steps to implement a deal on cutting output in the face of a persistent global glut.
US benchmark crude CLc1 was down 26 cents at $45.55 a barrel at 0208 GMT. On Tuesday, the contract surged 5.8 percent to $45.81 per barrel in its biggest daily percentage increase since early April. Brent LCOc1 futures, the global benchmark, also dropped by 26 cents to $46.69 a barrel. They settled up 5.7 percent at $46.95 a barrel in their largest percentage gain since Sept. 28.
OPEC agreed to an outline of a supply cutting deal in September but with two weeks to go before a Nov. 30 meeting, disagreements persist among members and non-OPEC Russia on crucial details. OPEC secretary-general Mohammed Barkindo will travel to member nations, including Iran and Venezuela, over the next few days to discuss the deal.
"Should an agreement to limit production come through, it will be the first in eight years," Jingyi Pan, market strategist at IG in Singapore, wrote in a note. "There remains event risks from US inventory reports in addition to non-OPEC members' stance that could jeopardize the current recovery pace of oil prices," Pan said.
The US industry group, the American Petroleum Institute, after the market closed on Tuesday said crude stocks rose last week. Crude inventories climbed by 3.6 million barrels in the week to Nov. 11 to 488.8 million, compared with analyst expectations for an increase of 1.5 million barrels.
Official figures on stockpiles from the US Energy Information Administration are due on Wednesday.