Daily Times

Crude oil prices failed to preserve the strength gained a day earlier and edged lower on Thursday, pressured by a strong US dollar and concerns about weak demand in the United States and Asia. At 1255 hours GMT, Brent, the international benchmark for two-thirds of the world’s oil, shed $0.38 (-0.52 percent) to reach $72.22 a barrel. Similarly, the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) reached $68.83 a barrel, down by $0.47 (-0.68 percent). The price for Opec Basket was recorded at $71.35 a barrel with 1.69 percent decrease, Arab Light was available at $71.90 a barrel with a 1.20 percent increase, while the price of Russian Sokol jumped to $73.13 after gaining 2.41 percent. Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute (API) Thursday reported a decrease of 2.88 million barrels of crude oil in the US crude oil inventories for the week ending September 3. API reported a draw of 4,045,000 barrels for the previous week. Economists were expecting a draw of about 3.832 million barrels. The API reports inventory levels of US crude oil, gasoline and distillates stocks. The figure shows how much oil and product is available in storage and thus gives an overview of U.S. petroleum demand.