Oil declines as rising global supply forces price U-turn

london — Oil neared threemonth lows on Thursday, surrendering early gains as investors focused on global crude supply, which is increasing more quickly than many had expected.

Chinese data earlier in the day that showed record oil imports offered some temporary respite to bearishness that has developed in the past couple of weeks over the expected crude market balance in 2019.

Record US crude production and signals from Iraq, Abu Dhabi and Indonesia that output will grow more quickly than expected in 2019 pushed the price of Brent oil to its lowest since mid-August earlier in the week.

Brent crude futures fell 68¢ to $71.39 a barrel by 1453GMT, having backed off a session high of $73.08, while US crude futures fell 72¢ to $60.95.

“Once again, the US has shown that when it is economic to do so, it can increase production at a greater pace than Saudi Arabia,” Olivier Jakob, a strategist at Petromatrix, said.

Kuwait hikes price for asia

Kuwait has raised the December official selling price (OSP) for crude oil sold to Asia by 15¢ a barrel from the previous month.

Kuwait will sell crude to its Asian customers at a premium of 30 cents a barrel to the average of Oman and Dubai benchmark prices in December, compared with a premium of 15¢ in November.