New York-traded West Texas Intermediate settled at $112.40 a barrel, down $1.80, or 1.6% from Monday. The US crude benchmark gained a cumulative 14.5% over four prior sessions of trading, touching a seven-week high of $114.90 in the previous session.
London-traded Brent settled at $111.93, down $2.31, or 2%. The global crude benchmark rose by 11.5% between May 10 and 16, climaxing with Monday’s one-month high of $114.79.
Traders said crude prices fell as EU foreign ministers failed on Monday in their effort to pressure Hungary to lift its veto of a proposed oil embargo on Russia. A bloc-wide ban on Russian oil would require approval from all EU nations.
“The oil market remains tight but if the EU embraces the strategy of putting tariffs on Russian crude instead of phasing them out, the rally with oil prices might show some exhaustion here,” Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, said.
Market participants were also on the lookout for US weekly oil inventory data, due after market settlement from the American Petroleum Institute (API).
The API will release later Tuesday a snapshot of closing balances on US crude, gasoline and distillates for the week ended May 13. The numbers serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the US Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.
Analysts polled by US media services expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile build of 1.38 million barrels for last week, versus the 8.49-million barrel rise reported during the previous week to May 6.
On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for a draw of 1.33 million barrels over the 3.61 million-barrel decline in the previous week.
With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a drop of 800,000 barrels versus the prior week’s deficit of 913,000.