Commodity Online
SINGAPORE : Oil prices remained steady in early Asian trade Thursday after a US Energy Department report showed fuel inventories jumped more than twice the amount expected.

Crude oil for March delivery was at $40.27 a barrel, down 5 cents, in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10.00 a.m Singapore time

Start trading in commodities from as low as $50. Join now

Brent crude oil for March settlement was at $44.25 a barrel, up 10 cents, on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange at 10.00 a.m in Singapore. The contract Wednesday rose 7 cents to $44.15 a barrel.

Futures declined 46 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $40.32 a barrel in New York yesterday. Prices are down 9.9% this year and 55% from a year earlier.

Supplies rose 7.2 million barrels to 346.1 million barrels last week, the highest since July 2007, US Energy Department said on Wednesday.

US fuel demand during the past four weeks averaged 19.5 million barrels a day, down 2.8% from a year earlier, the report showed.

The increase last week left stockpiles 15% higher than the five-year average for the period, the department said.