Crude Oil Futures Dip on Tuesday as WTI Remains Above $50 a Barrel

Oil prices continued to tumble on Tuesday, ahead of the weekly data reports which are expected to show a second consecutive weekly decline in domestic crude inventories, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, November West Texas Intermediate crude fell 16 cents, or 0.3%, to settle at $50.42 a barrel.

December Brent crude, the global benchmark, shed 12 cents, or 0.2%, to reach $56 a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group, believes that the “global rebalancing of the oil market is still under way.”

The market should see “more evidence of that,” said Flynn, in the American Petroleum Institute supply report due out late Tuesday as well as the Energy Information Administration’s data due Wednesday, following the surprise drop in U.S. crude oil supply reported last week.

Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts expect the EIA to report a decline of 1.5 million in crude stocks for the week ending September 29.

Meanwhile, November natural gas ended down 2.1 cents, or 0.7%, at $2.895 per million British thermal units back on the New York Mercantile Exchange.