Crude oil futures settled below $40 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since early April, according to a report by Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the September West Texas Intermediate crude oil contract traded higher at $40.91 a barrel earlier in the day but fell 55 cents, or 1.4%, to settle at $39.51 a barrel. This marks the lowest WTI contract settlement since April 7.
On the London ICE Futures Exchange, October Brent crude, the global benchmark, dropped 34 cents, or 0.8%, to close at $41.80 a barrel.
Investors are concerned with the outcome of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on inventories and production due on Wednesday in addition to the American Petroleum Institute’s inventory data report due late Tuesday.
“The world is so oversupplied and the pace of rebalance is so slow that even geopolitical factors such as the ongoing civil strife in Nigeria are not enough to offset the fall in prices,” said Gao Jian, an energy analyst at SCI International.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, September natural gas fell 3.8 cents, or 1.4%, to close at $2.733 per million British thermal units.
