Crude Oil Is Little Changed on Concerns About U.S. Fuel Demand

April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil traded little changed after rising on April 17 on concerns about fuel demand as reports this week may show any economic recovery in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil user, will be slow to develop.

A U.S. Commerce Department report on April 24 may show orders for durable goods such as refrigerators and computers fell for the fifth time in six months in March, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Crude-oil inventories are at 366.7 million barrels, the highest since September 1990, the Energy Department said on April 15.

“The uncertain demand outlook is going to continue to dominate the outlook for crude,” said Toby Hassall, an analyst at Commodity Warrants Australia Ltd. in Sydney. “The fundamentals really haven’t shown any improvement.”

Crude oil for May delivery was at $50.24 a barrel, down 18 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 7:37 a.m. Singapore time. The contract rose 35 cents, or 0.7 percent, to settle at $50.33 a barrel on April 17. Prices are up 13 percent so far this year.

The May contract expires tomorrow. The more active June future was at $52.31 a barrel, down 16 cents, at 7:37 a.m. Singapore time.

Crude oil rose on April 17 on reports that oil refiners in China, the world’s second largest crude consumer, increased their output last month. The country refined 29.4 million metric tons of crude, or about 6.92 million barrels a day, in March, the China Mainland Marketing Research Co. said in a statement April 17. That’s up 0.7 percent from a year earlier.

Still, China’s gross domestic product increased 6.1 percent in the first quarter, the slowest pace in 10 years, a sign that oil-demand growth there could be tempered by the global recession.

U.S. Fuel Demand

“China’s GDP number was slightly weaker than expected last week,” said Commodity Warrants’ Hassall. “We are looking to China as well as India to underpin demand as a lot of the industrialized nations contract.”

U.S. fuel demand in the first quarter fell to the lowest for the period in 11 years, the American Petroleum Institute said in a monthly report on April 16. Deliveries of petroleum products, a measure of consumption, averaged 19.2 million barrels a day, 3.4 percent less than during the same period in 2008, the industry-funded API said.

Angola, Africa’s second-largest producer, will increase daily crude shipments, including the Palanca grade, by 7.3 percent in June as OPEC’s production cuts stall.

Angola Loadings

BP Plc, Total SA, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and other companies are scheduled to load an average of 1.83 million barrels a day in June, compared with May’s 1.7 million barrels a day, according to loading programs released through today.

Angola’s output totaled 1.6 million barrels a day in March, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts, traders and producers. That’s 103,000 barrels a day over their quota, set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“It’s unlikely that you’ll get 100 percent compliance,” said Hassall. “Given the lift we’ve seen in oil prices there is a greater incentive to cheat on those quotas.”

Brent crude oil for June settlement rose 29 cents, or 0.5 percent, to end the session at $53.35 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange.