By Mahmoud Gamal
Mubasher: Oil prices saw a slide on Wednesday in Asia after the American Petroleum Institute (API) revealed that US crude supplies roughly fell by 800,000 barrels for the week ended July 22.
By 4:40am GMT, international Brent crude oil futures were 0.13% lower to $45.17 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell by 0.12% to $42.87 per barrel.
Today's early downturn was mainly driven by the API data that renewed worries of oversupply amid the dollar's rise and speculations over the Federal Reserve's decisions that will be announced later today, said commodity market analyst Ahmed Karam.
The US dollar index inched up by 0.02% to 97.19 points against a basket of currencies by 4:40am GMT.
By hovering near three-month lows, oil prices are likely to decline to $39-40 a barrel, the analyst concluded.
