Oil Declines After U.S. Lawmakers Fail to Agree on Debt Ceiling

Oil declined for the first time in five days on concern a failure to reach a deal on raising the U.S. debt limit may cause the nation to default, threatening the economy of the world’s biggest crude consumer.

Futures dropped as much as 1.3 percent after House Speaker John Boehner told Republicans that there’s no agreement on a plan for increasing the ceiling before a default threatened for Aug. 2. Standard & Poor’s has warned there is a 50 percent chance it will lower the U.S. government’s AAA credit rating by one or more levels. Greece’s long-term foreign currency debt was cut three steps by Moody’s Investors Service today.