Investing.com - Oil prices fell on Thursday in Asia as data showed crude inventories grew more than expected in the week to April 5.
U.S. Crude Oil WTI Futures fell 0.5% to $64.28 by 12:40 AM ET (04:40 GMT). International Brent Oil Futures was down 0.4% to $71.43.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said crude inventories grew by 7.03 million barrels in the week to April 5 compared with forecasts for a stockpile draw of 2.3 million barrels. It was a third-straight week of crude builds, with about 17 million additional barrels adding to inventories since the week ended March 22.
But the EIA report also showed that gasoline inventories plunged by 7.71 million barrels, compared with expectations for a draw of 2.01 million barrels.
"Despite an increase in activity, refinery runs remain over 900,000 bpd below year-ago levels, leading to a solid build to oil inventories, and particularly on the U.S. Gulf Coast," said Matthew Smith, analyst at New York-based crude cargoes tracker Clipperdata.
"Offsetting this bearish build has been an even larger draw to gasoline inventories - helped by the year-over-year deficit in refining activity, as well as a pop in implied demand over the last week," Smith said.
Despite today’s fall, oil prices are still trading near 5-months high. However, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) said prices are unlikely to reach $80.
“We don’t think you’re going to get back to those $80 levels again, so you’ve got some modest upside here,” Goldman Sachs’ head of commodities research, Jeff Currie, told CNBC this week.
In a research note, analysts from the investment bank wrote that the rally in oil prices might have largely run its course.
“While the macro risk-on environment and the threat of disruptions may drive spot prices even higher, we still expect that prices will decline gradually from this summer as shale and OPEC production increases,” they concluded. “With large spare capacity in OPEC and the Permian basin and a wave of long-cycle projects still expected to come online in 2020, we maintain our $60 forecast for next year.”