Summary US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for April lost $2.21 to close at $44.84 a barrel.
NEW YORK (AFP) - World oil prices sank Friday after the International Energy Agency warned that US crude inventories were nearing storage capacity amid a global oversupply.
US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for April lost $2.21 to close at $44.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In London, the global benchmark, Brent North Sea crude for April delivery, settled at $54.67 a barrel, down $2.41 from Thursday s closing level.
"The petroleum market is coming under renewed selling pressure after a monthly report from the International Energy Agency highlighted rising US inventories, echoing market concerns regarding storage capacity," said Tim Evans of Citi Futures.
"It was a very bearish week," said Matt Smith of Schneider Electric, citing the high inventories, and adding that "the super, super-strong dollar has pressured crude back to the mid-forties."
A stronger greenback makes dollar-priced oil more expensive for buyers using weaker currencies, weighing on the market.
The Paris-based IEA warned that US crude output "so far shows precious little sign of slowing down. Quite to the contrary, it continues to defy expectations."
"The unwinding of seasonal refinery maintenance may slow US crude stock builds in 2Q15 but will not stop them, and stocks may soon test storage capacity limits," it said in its monthly report.
The IEA said that the recent rebound in oil prices, after the 60 percent collapse between June and January, would probably be fleeting.
"Behind the facade of stability, the rebalancing triggered by the price collapse has yet to run its course, and it might be overly optimistic to expect it to proceed smoothly," it said.
Meanwhile the latest Baker Hughes US rigs report, released Friday, showed the number of crude-oil drilling rigs in the United States continued to fall, by 56 to 866 this week, down 41 percent from a year ago.
"It should have brought up the market, but there is a loss of confidence on the supply-side report," Smith said.
