BANGKOK (AP) — Oil hovered near $102 a barrel Monday, its gains tempered by a forecast of ample growth in supplies and a looming deadline for lawmakers to agree on lifting the U.S. borrowing limit.
Benchmark crude for November delivery was up 43 cents at $102.45 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 99 cents Friday to close at $102.02 and lost $1.82 or 1.8 percent for the week.
In its latest quarterly oil market report, the International Energy Agency predicted strong growth in non-OPEC supplies of crude oil.
The Paris-based IEA said Friday that the United States would overtake Russia next year as the largest non-OPEC producer of liquid fuels, a category that includes other fuels on top of crude oil.
Traders are also watching the latest turns in the debt debate in Washington. The price of oil has swung back and forth for days as lawmakers try to resolve an impasse that left the government partially closed and the markets worried about the U.S. defaulting on its debt for the first time.
There was no agreement over the weekend. Failure to raise the U.S. borrowing limit by Thursday could result in a default on government bond interest payments, undermining the credibility of assets that are prized as collateral by banks worldwide and crucial to the functioning of the financial system.
Brent crude was down 5 cents at $110.28 on the ICE futures exchange in London.
In other energy futures trading on Nymex:
— Natural gas rose 5.3 cents to $3.829 per 1,000 cubic feet.
— Wholesale gasoline added 0.1 cent to $2.654 a gallon.
— Heating oil gained 0.9 cent to $3.044 a gallon.