Oil heads for third weekly loss after new signs of inventory building

Tokyo: Crude futures fell in Asian trading on Friday as fresh signs of inventory building and the Federal Reserves rate hike this week kept prices under pressure amid a global glut of oil that shows no sign of abating.’US crude’s West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 were down 18 cents at $34.77 a barrel by 0104 GMT. The contract fell 1.6 percent to $34.95 a barrel on Thursday.Brent LCOc1 fell by 19 cents to $36.87 a barrel. It fell 33 cents to $37.06 a barrel on Thursday.Both contracts are on track to post a third week of losses, with U.S. crude down 2.4 percent and Brent off by 2.6 percent.WTI is less than 60 cents away from the low reached during the global financial crisis of $32.40 in December 2008, while Brent is less than 70 cents off its nadir of $36.20 the same month.Market intelligence company Genscape reported an inventory increase of 1.4 million barrels at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub for WTI futures, traders who saw the data said on Thursday.That came a day after the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said crude stockpiles across the United States rose by 4.8 million barrels last week, compared with analysts expectations for a draw.