Oil headed for a third weekly drop in New York as signals that supply is exceeding demand outweighed an unexpected decline in the unemployment rate.
Futures are set to cap the longest run of weekly decreases since June after an Energy Department report on Oct. 3 showed U.S. crude output rose to 6.52 million barrels a day last week, the most since December 1996. Prices pared their descent earlier when government data showed the U.S. added 114,000 jobs last month as the jobless rate fell to 7.8 percent.
“The fundamentals of the oil market point to ample supplies, especially here in the U.S., and anemic demand,” said Gene McGillian, an analyst and broker at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. “There is some positive sentiment in the employment data which is providing some support.”