Oil Dips As Budget Talks Reach 11th Hour

Oil futures slipped on Tuesday, pulling back as 11th-hour talks to avoid a government shutdown didn’t inspire much investor confidence that Washington would be back to business as usual later in the day.

Crude oil for November delivery  was down 32 cents, or 0.3%, to $102.01 a barrel in electronic trade ahead of key supply data.

On Monday, crude finished lower, bogged down by weaker-than-expected manufacturing data from China as well as the shutdown fears that rattled markets. For the month, oil prices ended up losing 4.9%, though they registered a 6% gain for the third quarter.

The American Petroleum Institute will release its weekly report at 4:30 p.m. Eastern, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration is scheduled to post its numbers on Wednesday. Commercial crude oil stocks are expected to have risen 2.4 million barrels for the past week, according to Platts, which explained that the increase will likely be pinned on sharply reduced crude oil runs at U.S. refineries, regardless of sustained lower crude oil imports.

“We have had enough refineries back out of the game unexpectedly last week to make a difference and this number could be more,” Oil Outlooks President Carl Larry told Platts.

Elsewhere, natural gas for November delivery lost another penny, or 0.2%, to $3.55 per million British thermal units. Prices have given up almost 3.4% for the month but were about flat for the quarter. November gasoline  was also down a penny, or 0.3%, to $2.62 a gallon. Prices, tracking the most-active contracts, were down 8.8% for the month and 3% for the quarter.

Source : Marketwatch