Oil down 3 percent on new Cushing builds, global growth worries

“Although these data showed that crude inventories rose 3.5 million barrels to reach a new record of 507.6 million barrels, the increase was half that which had been found by the API ( the trade association of the oil sector American Petroleum Institute, Ed) the previous day, “explained the expert at Commerzbank”.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a 3.5 million-barrel climb in crude-oil supplies for the week ended February 19.

“The market continues to seesaw”, said Gene McGillian of Tradition Energy.

“U.S. production cuts are by far the most likely source of further price support for the oil market, rather than any talks between Venezuela, Russia and other producers”, Ric Spooner, a chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone. Other headline contracts, including CBOT wheat (up 0.50%), ICE cotton (up 0.52%), cocoa (up 0.48%) and CME live cattle (up 1.10%), headed higher in early trading calls stateside.

“Gasoline inventories dropped and demand is pretty strong”.

Iran, which is ramping up production after nuclear-linked Western economic sanctions were lifted, has meanwhile reacted coldly to the freeze proposal.

In London, Brent North Sea crude for April delivery, the European benchmark, slid 16 cents to $35.13 a barrel, down 0.45 per cent. Gasoline futures recently traded up 4.4% at $1.0091 a gallon.

At the Cushing Oil Hub in Oklahoma, inventories rose by 333,000 barrels to surge above 65 million, reaching a fresh record-high.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.8 million barrels a day, down by 117,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week.

Venezuela’s oil minister said there would be an extensive meeting between his country and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Russian Federation in mid-March to take additional steps to trim output, after the four countries met in Doha earlier this month and agreed to freeze individual outputs at January 11 levels.

“We work together with all the stakeholders, all partners within OPEC and outside, open to help renounce the price of oil, to bring it back to where it should be”, Naufel Alhassan said. But Al-Naimi also said there was “less trust” between the big oil powers, making production cuts an unrealistic option, according to a CNBC report.