The global oil glut continues to plague oil prices, bringing them down to multi-week lows in a third straight session on Tuesday. An EIA (Energy Information Administration) report out today is expected to show another increase in U.S. crude inventories while crude oil futures settled at a two-month low of $43.20 a barrel, down 78 cents in U.S. trade overnight, the weakest since Aug. 28.

U.S. crude inventories rose 3.4 million barrels last week, a fifth consecutive build-up following gains of 22 million barrels over a four-week span.

Asian markets reacted to the drop in oil prices, trading mostly lower Wednesday, with losses in energy stocks counterbalanced by gains in Japanese shares as traders looked to the central bank for more economic stimulus.

In Asia trade midday, WTI edged up 8 cents to $43.28. Japan’s Inpex shed 1.1 percent. In Hong Kong, CNOOC shed 1.4 percent and Sinopec fell 2.3 percent.

Oil Decline Blamed on OPEC

Jeff Powell, chief investment officer at Polaris Greystone Financial, put most of the blame for oil’s deep decline on OPEC’s failure to cut production, a refusal that has left billions of the black gold sitting on oil barges out at sea and going nowhere.

According to Powell, “You’ve also seen a lot of efficiencies created as oil has dropped within the fracking segment of the U.S. market, so a lot of the production that’s going on in the U.S. really hasn’t slowed down even though you have seen this material drop in oil price.”

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