Crude oil fell as the US market opened on Wednesday, as its about to make its first loss in three days, with correction and profit taking activity, after yesterday's prices reached a four-month high, as initial data from API pushed the crude's losses away for the second week in a row. Traders are looking for official inventory data and production levels in the weekly report of the US Energy Agency.
As of 13:09 GMT, US crude fell to $58.90 a barrel from the opening of $59.28, with the highest at $59.37 and the lowest at $58.57.
US crude was up 0.1% on Tuesday, its second consecutive daily gain, hitting a four-month high of $59.84 a barrel.
In preliminary data, the US Petroleum Institute announced yesterday that the country's trade inventories fell by about 2.1 million barrels in the week ending March 15, the second consecutive weekly decline, contrary to experts' estimates of about 1 million barrels.
According to the data, total US commercial inventories fell to 445.9 million barrels, the lowest level of US stocks in a month, in a positive sign of demand levels in the world's largest oil consumer.
Traders are also looking for official data on commercial stocks and production levels in the weekly report of the EIA, and expectations are for inventories to rise by 0.5 million barrels, the second weekly increase over the last three weeks.
For production, it fell by 100,000 barrels per day in the previous week, the first weekly drop since December, bringing the total to 12.0 million bpd, dropping from its record level of 12.1 million barrels.