Oil Pulls Back Some From Jump to Fresh 2-1/2-Year Highs

Oil futures declined modestly in Asia following Tuesday's price jump in U.S. trading to their latest 2 1/2-year highs, an increase caused by a pipeline explosion in Libya.

--February light, sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange was recently down 0.4% at $59.72 a barrel in the Globex trading session. February Brent fell 0.5% to $66.71.

--The pipeline blast was a reminder of the headline risk now facing the oil market with OPEC-led production caps remaining in place for 2018 as oil inventories have started falling globally. A 5th-straight weekly drop is anticipated to be reported by the US latest this week, according to a survey of analysts by S&P Global Platts.

Write to Biman Mukherji at biman.mukherji@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 26, 2017 23:33 ET (04:33 GMT)