Oil headed for its
biggest quarterly drop in
New
York
since the 2008 financial crisis as signs of slowing
growth in
China
and
Germany
heightened concerns that fuel demand will
suffer.
West Texas Intermediate futures have fallen 14
percent this quarter, the biggest drop since the three months ended
Dec.
31, 2008
. Chinese
manufacturing fell for a third month, data from HSBC Holdings Plc showed today,
while Germany’s Federal Statistics office said retail sales declined the most
in more than four months in August. WTI’s discount to Brent oil narrowed for a
sixth day, the longest streak since March 2010.
“There is a risk of slowdown in Chinese demand
as well,” said
Eugen
Weinberg
, head of commodities
research at Commerzbank AG in
Frankfurt
, who forecasts Brent prices at $100 in the next
quarter. “The risks to the forecast in the fourth quarter and for 2012 as a
whole are to the downside.”
Crude for November delivery on the
New
York Mercantile Exchange
was at $82.34 a barrel, up 20 cents, at
10:16 a.m.
London
time after gaining as much as $1.09, or 1.3 percent,
to $83.23. WTI is down 7.3 percent this month.
Brent oil for November settlement was down 12
cents at $103.83 a barrel on the ICE Futures
Europe
exchange in
London
. Prices are down 7.7 percent this quarter.
Brent Spread
Brent was at a premium of $21.49 to WTI futures.
The spread climbed to a record of $26.87 on Sept. 6 as fighting in
Libya
reduced the availability of light, sweet crude,
or oil with low density and sulfur content.
Libya
is now producing 300,000 barrels a day of oil,
said Ali Tarhouni, the official in charge of the North African nation’s finance
and oil ministries, speaking to reporters in
Tripoli
yesterday.
Oil may fall next week on concern that
Europe
’s economy is showing signs of a slowdown as
governments struggle to contain their fiscal crisis and avert a Greek default,
according to a Bloomberg News survey. Thirteen of 28 analysts, or 46 percent,
forecast oil will decline through Oct. 7, while eight respondents, or 29
percent, predicted prices will increase.
Greek Prime Minister
George
Papandreou
will
meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy today in
Paris
after seeing European Union President
Herman
Van Rompuy
in
Warsaw
. European leaders next week will discuss a
permanent rescue fund after German lawmakers approved an expansion of the
temporary European Financial Stability Facility.
German
Data
German retail sales, adjusted for inflation and
seasonal swings, slumped 2.9 from July, when they rose 0.3 percent, the Federal
Statistics Office in
Wiesbaden
said today. Economists had forecast a 0.5
percent decline, according to the median of 18 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
A gauge of manufacturing in
China
, which consumes about a tenth of the world’s
oil, shrank for a third month, the longest contraction since 2009. The reading
of 49.9 for the September purchasing managers’ index, released by HSBC Holdings
Plc and Markit Economics today, was unchanged from August and compared with a
preliminary 49.4 figure published last week.China is the
world’s second largest crude consumer.