By Shariq Khan and Alex Lawler
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices edged lower on Thursday, pressured by expectations of lower U.S. fuel demand at the end of the summer travel season and by the restart of Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline.
Brent crude futures fell 46 cents, or 0.7%, to $67.59 by 12:04 p.m. ET (1604 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 57 cents, or 0.9%, at $63.58 a barrel.
The upcoming U.S. Labor Day long weekend ends the summer driving season. The outlook is for lower U.S. demand for gasoline, even as crude oil supplies rise due to an OPEC plan to raise September output by 547,000 barrels per day. The mismatch will cause oil inventories to rise, Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note.
“That will be weighing on energy futures across the spectrum as summer turns into fall, and as gasoline demand tapers off and refiners shift to the lower-priced winter grade product,” they said.
Russian crude supplies to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline have restarted after an outage caused by a Ukrainian attack in Russia last week, Hungarian oil company MOL and Slovakia’s economy minister said on Thursday.
Traders are also watching out for how India responds to pressure from the U.S. to stop buying Russian oil, after President Donald Trump doubled tariffs on imports from India to as much as 50% on Wednesday.
“India is expected to continue purchasing crude oil from Russia at least in the short term, which should limit the impact of the new tariffs on global supply,” IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said.
Lending some support to prices, U.S. crude inventories fell more than expected last week, official data showed on Wednesday, a sign of strong demand. Both crude benchmarks gained around 1% in the prior session after the data was published.
Russia and Ukraine have also stepped up attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure.
Russia launched a massive drone attack on energy and gas transport infrastructure across six Ukrainian regions overnight to Wednesday, leaving more than 100,000 people without power, Ukrainian officials said.
(Additional reporting by Sam Li in Beijing and Siyi Liu in Singapore; Editing by Louise Heavens, Ros Russell and David Gregorio)
