Oil futures declined for a second straight day on Thursday as US crude supplies increased, dulling prospects for energy demand.
U.S. prices dropped 2% as September West Texas Intermediate oil fell 83 cents and settled at $41.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
September Brent crude, the global benchmark lost 98 cents or 2.2% at $43.31 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe.
Natural-gas futures, meanwhile, got a boost as traders eyed storm developments in the Gulf of Mexico for potential disruptions to production in the region. August natural gas rose 10 cents, or 6.2%, to $1.785 per million British thermal units.
But the lack of demand on crude supplies drove the drop in oil prices.
“Virtually all demand categories” showed a week-on-week decline in the report from the Energy Information Administration Wednesday, said Robbie Fraser, senior commodity analyst at Schneider Electric reported MarketWatch.
The report showed a weekly fall of 98,000 barrels per day in implied demand for finished motor gasoline to 8.55 million barrels a day. Implied demand for distillate fuel oil fell 470,000 barrels per day to 3.22 million barrels a day.
“That fall will tie into broader concerns around a rise in COVID cases in the U.S. and the potential economic headwinds that could bring moving forward,” Fraser said in a daily note.
Locally, SandRidge Energy shares fell one cent or 0.73% to settle at $1.35 while Devon Energy slipped 19 cents or 1.72% to finish at $10.88 a share.
ConocoPhillips fell 43 cents or 1.06% to finish at $40.46 for the day while EOG Resources dropped 2.67% or $1.34 a share, ending the day at $48.85.
Kinder Morgan dropped 40 cents or 2.69% and finished at $14.49 while Marathon Oil was down 3 cents or 0.52% to settle at $5.76.
Noble Energy added 9 cents or 0.82% to finish at $10.95 while ONEOK saw a 1.84% or 54-cent decline to $28.96.