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1st LD Writethru: Oil prices drop amid supply glut

Xinhua, March 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

Crude prices declined Thursday amid concerns that the global supply exceeds the demand.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that U.S. crude stockpiles increased by 4.5 million barrels to 448. 9 million, 78.9 million barrels more than a year earlier. U.S. crude production reached 9.366 million barrels a day last week, the highest level since 1983. The figure has trumped market expectation of a slight drop in U.S. crude stockpiles.

Last week's increase included a gain of 2.3 million barrels at the Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the contract.

There was no sign that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps a third of world oil, would cut production in response to the slump. The group increased output to 30.6 million barrels a day in February, according to a recent Bloomberg survey.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery lost 1.12 dollars to settle at 47.05 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for April delivery moved down 46 cents to close at 57.08 dollars a barrel. Endite