Market and product

Oil traded below $48 a barrel before U.S. government data forecast to show crude stockpiles increased in the world’s biggest consumer.

Futures fell as much as 0.6 percent in New York after advancing 3.8 percent Tuesday. Inventories probably expanded for a sixth week, keeping supplies more than 100 million barrels higher than the five-year seasonal average, a Bloomberg survey shows before an Energy Information Administration report Wednesday. China has a bottom-line goal of 6.5 percent annual economic growth, according to its new development blueprint released Tuesday.

Oil has slumped almost 40 percent the past year amid speculation the global glut will be prolonged as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries continues to pump above its collective quota. Shipments from a Libyan port were halted amid an escalating conflict between the nation’s two rival administrations, putting exports at risk.

“Supply is still the story,” Jonathan Barratt, chief investment officer at Ayers Alliance Securities in Sydney, said by phone. “Geopolitical issues will always put a base under prices and there is a solid range for oil.”
West Texas Intermediate for December delivery fell as much as 28 cents to $47.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $47.78 a barrel at 4:17 p.m. Singapore time. The contract rose $1.76 to $47.90 on Tuesday. The volume of all futures traded was about 13 percent below the 100-day average.

Refinery Rates

Brent for December settlement fell as much as 40 cents to $50.14 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. It climbed $1.75, or 3.6 percent, on Tuesday. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $2.49 to WTI.

Crude stockpiles in the U.S. probably increased by 2.5 million barrels through Oct. 30, the Bloomberg survey shows. That would be the longest run of gains since April. Refinery rates probably climbed by 0.3 percentage points to 87.9 percent of capacity, according to the survey.
China’s annual growth should be no less than 6.5 percent in the next five years to realize the goal of doubling 2010 gross domestic product and per capita income by 2020, President Xi Jinping said Tuesday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The 13th five-year plan, details of which were announced Tuesday, is the first to confront an era of sub-7 percent economic growth since Deng Xiaoping opened the nation to the outside world in the late 1970s.