REFILE-Oil prices fall as U.S. crude stocks hit record for 7th successive week

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By Keith Wallis
SINGAPORE, March 31 (Reuters) - Oil futures fell in early
Asian trade on Thursday amid renewed worries of global
oversupply after official data showed U.S. crude inventories
rose last week to a record for the seventh time in a row.
That increase came despite seasonal refinery utilisation
hitting an 11-year high, while a fall in the dollar index .DXY
gave some support for oil prices.
The front-month contract for U.S. crude futures CLc1
dropped 29 cents to $38.03 a barrel by 0021 GMT, after settling
up 4 cents in the previous session following a gain of 3 percent
earlier in the session.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 fell 25 cents to $39.01 a barrel
after ending the previous session up 12 cents, having retreating
from a session peak of $40.61.
U.S. crude stocks rose by 2.3 million barrels to 534.8
million barrels in the week to March 25, data from the U.S.
Energy Information Administration shows. EIA/S
But the increase was less than analysts' expectations of a
3.3 million barrel build.
Refinery crude runs rose by 414,000 barrels per day (bpd)
and refinery utilisation rates rose 2 percentage points to 90.4
percent of total capacity, the highest seasonal rate since 2005.
L2N1720XL
"A slightly weaker dollar continues to provide some mild
support to industrial commodity prices, but concerns about
slowing demand are likely to persist," ANZ said in a note on
Thursday.
Concerns over global oversupply were further fuelled after
crude output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries rose in March to 32.47 million bpd from 32.37 million
bpd in February, according to a Reuters survey based on shipping
and other data.
The increase followed the lifting of Iranian sanctions and
near-record exports from southern Iraq that offset maintenance
and outages in smaller producers.
Iran is expected to add half a million barrels of oil supply
a day within a year from existing oilfields after sanctions were
lifted in January, Fatih Birol, the head of the International
Energy Agency told Reuters on Wednesday.