West Texas
Intermediate crude declined on the New York Mercantile Exchange, paring a sixth
consecutive weekly gain. Brent also slipped, narrowing a gain for the week.
WTI for
April delivery dropped 56 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $102.19 a barrel at 10:50
a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The volume of all futures traded was
27 percent below the 100-day average. Crude is up 1.9 percent this week and 10
percent in the past six weeks.
Brent for
April settlement slipped 48 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $109.82 on the
London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices are up 0.7 percent this week.
Trading was 37 percent lower than the 100-day average. The European benchmark crude
was traded at $7.63 premium to WTI, little changed from $7.55 yesterday.
WTI is set
for the longest run of weekly gains in a year with supplies falling at Cushing
and cold weather bolstering fuel demand. The opening of the Keystone XL
pipeline’s southern link in January eased a bottleneck in the central
WTI may
fall next week as stockpiles expand, a Bloomberg survey shows. Twenty-three of
28 analysts and traders, or 82 percent, said futures will decrease through Feb.
28. Four respondents expected prices to gain while one forecast there will be
little change.