Crude Trades Near 1-Week High on China Optimism

Oil fell in New York after trading close to a one week-high amid signs that supply is plentiful. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its Brent price forecast for 2013 by 15 percent.

West Texas Intermediate futures dropped as much as 0.8 percent after closing at the highest level since Oct. 9. Crude inventories in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer, gained 2.9 million barrels last week to 369 million, the highest for this time of year since government records began in 1982, the Energy Department said in a report yesterday. Goldman cut its forecast for Brent to $110 a barrel from $130.

“There are very weak fundamentals in the oil market,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “The U.S. data shows there is no bottleneck at all in supply.”

Crude for November delivery was at $91.63 a barrel, down 49 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 1:50 p.m. London time. The contract closed yesterday at $92.12. Futures are down 7.3 percent this year.

Brent for December settlement dropped 87 cents to $112.35 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe. The front-month European benchmark grade’s premium to the corresponding WTI contract was at $20.27 a barrel. It settled at $23.95 on Oct. 15, the widest gap since reaching a record on Oct. 14, 2011.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ayesha Daya in Dubai at adaya1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net