Oil mixed in Asian trade

SINGAPORE: Oil prices were mixed in Asian trade Wednesday as a pickup in Chinese industrial output and forecasts of a sharper-than-expected decline in US stockpiles buoyed crude markets, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, lost 25 cents to $99.12 a barrel, while Brent North Sea crude for delivery in July rose 49 cents to $120.65 on its last trading day.

"The sentiment seems to be improving due to the Chinese production data and information from the weekly crude inventories," said Serene Lim, a Singapore-based analyst from ANZ Bank.

Data released by the Chinese government Tuesday showed output from the world's largest energy consumer rising 13.3 percent year-on-year in May, a level almost unchanged from April's 13.4 percent.

Sustained growth in the Chinese industrial sector would translate to strong crude demand as the Asian economic powerhouse seeks energy to fuel its thousands of workshops and factories.

Chinese output growth also offset concerns over the nation's soaring inflation, which the central bank tried to damp down by increasing the reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points, effectively limiting the amount of money banks can lend.

In the US, the American Petroluem Institute forecast Tuesday a three million barrel decrease in crude inventories for the week ending June 10, double initial predictions of 1.5 million barrels.

The figure provided a sign that energy demand was picking up in the US, the world's biggest oil consumer.

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Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011