VINACHEM

NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Crude oil prices have weakened on decline seen in US, China demand and strength in US dollar.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, U.S. crude oil for delivery in July traded at $102.26 a barrel, down 0.38%.

The Brent oil contract fell 0.4% to $108.40 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange, its fourth consecutive losing session.

Reuters reported that May assessment for crude arrivals in China is at 22-23 mn metric tons which would be the lowest since October 2013 which stood at 20.42 mn tons. It has estiamted June imports at 23 mn mt.

Royston Huan of Reuters noted that its current fixture data has pegged imports for the monthly at 21.85 mn mt, down by about 21.6% from official April volumes at 27.88 mn mt. The higher than expected volumes for April had largely stemmed from the strategic stockpiling of new onshore tanks in Tianjin which were estimated to be three times higher on year for the same month.

Reuters report noted that imports for May have dipped due to a lower take-up of strategic reserves as well as drop in refinery throughput to around 9 mn barrel per day.

According to Energy Information Administration of US, crude stock piles fell 3.4 mn barrels in the week ended May 30 while American Petroleum Institute reported that inventories fell by 1.4 mn barrels.

The decline in inventories was caused by decline in imports reflected by fall in demand. The API report also contained bearish news for refined products with demand falling and inventories rising for gasoline and distillates, which include heating oil and diesel. Falling gasoline demand was bearish since summer driving season is underway.

Investing.com said that a $108.31 per barrel for Brent crude and $102.34 per barrel for WTI crude, strong sell to sell was indicated on a daily basis.