WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices fell further on Wednesday, after having dropped more than 2 percent in the previous session on demand concerns.
Benchmark Brent crude futures fell 0.8 percent to $78.03 a barrel, while WTI crude futures were down 0.9 percent at $74.86.
Traders are taking profits from recent gains as focus shifted to lackluster demand and pending output increases by Saudi Arabia and its OPEC? allies from the start of October.
As global supplies increase and concerns mount over slowing growth in top importer China, top Wall Street banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley have slashed their price forecasts for next year.
The two banks now foresee global benchmark Brent averaging less than US$80 a barrel in 2025 and said the crude market will be in surplus over the next 12 months.
Meanwhile, traders await cues from the weekly inventory report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a larger-than-expected decline in weekly domestic crude stocks.
Data showed U.S. oil inventories dropped by about 3.4 million barrels for the week ending August 23, compared with a build of build of 347,000 barrels reported by the API for the previous week.
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