Investing.com - Oil prices edged lower during North American hours on Wednesday, after data showed that crude supplies rose the second straight week.
Crude oil for December delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange dipped 12 cents, or 0.27%, to $44.85 a barrel by 10:36AM ET (15:36GMT). Prices were at around $44.87 prior to the release of the inventory data. The contract tumbled by more than 4% to $43.07 earlier, the lowest since September 20.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories rose by 2.4 million barrels in the week ended November 4. Market analysts' expected a crude-stock gain of 1.3 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a supply increase of 4.4 million barrels.
Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the key delivery point for Nymex crude, increased by 28,000 barrels last week, the EIA said.
Total U.S. crude oil inventories stood at 485.0 million barrels as of last week, which the EIA considered to be “historically high levels for this time of year”.
The report also showed that gasoline inventories decreased by 2.8 million barrels, compared to expectations for a decline of 1.0 million barrels.
For distillate inventories including diesel, the EIA reported a drop of 1.9 million barrels.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for January delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London shed 16 cents, or 0.35%, to $45.88 a barrel. It sank 4% to a daily low of $44.41 overnight, a level not seen since August 11.
Oil plunged along with other risk-sensitive assets overnight as Donald Trump shocked financial markets by winning the U.S. presidential election.
But sentiment recovered after Trump gave a victory speech in which he said he would seek common ground and not hostility, contrasting the heated words he has become famous for at campaign rallies.
Meanwhile, oil traders continued to weigh prospects of a coordinated production cut among major global oil producers.
OPEC reached an agreement to cap output to a range of 32.5 million to 33.0 million barrels per day in talks held in Algeria in late September. However, the 14-member oil group said it won’t finalize details on individual output quotas until its next official meeting in Vienna on November 30.
The possibility that producers could walk away empty-handed from the November meeting looms large after Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and Libya all signaled they might not take part in the proposed production cut deal. Russia’s unclear stance is also fueling uncertainty.