Crude oil for October delivery fell as much as 78 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $67.82 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract traded at $67.93 at 12:19 p.m. in London. Brent crude for October delivery was down 73 cents to $67.36 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London
``The market is relatively well-supplied,'' said Sadek Boussena, former Algerian oil minister and previously president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. ``There is no reason for prices being higher than $70.''
Gasoline for October delivery dropped 0.5 cents to $1.6415 a gallon, a six-month low, in after-hours trading in New York. The average U.S. price for unleaded gasoline fell to $2.720 per gallon on Sept. 5 from $3.036 the month before, according to the American Automobile Association, the nation's largest driver organization.
An Energy Department report this week will probably show fuel stockpiles in the U.S., the world's biggest oil consumer, remain above average even as refiners increase production, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts.
U.S. refiners and oil companies held 332.8 million barrels of oil on Aug. 25, 12 percent more than the five-year average for the period, the department said last month. Crude supplies probably fell 1.375 million barrels last week, based on the median estimate from a Bloomberg survey of eight analysts.
Gasoline supplies probably fell by 850,000 barrels. Stockpiles held 206.2 million barrels the week before, 2.6 percent more than the five-year average.
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