Copyright 2015 Bloomberg.

Ben Sharples
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(Bloomberg) — Oil declined as Saudi Arabia signaled the world’s biggest exporter won’t balance the market and forecasts for rising crude stockpiles in the U.S. boosted speculation that a global glut will persist.

Futures fell as much as 1.7 percent in New York. Supply and demand and the “rules of economics will govern,” Khalid Al- Falih, the chief executive officer of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., said at a conference in Riyadh. U.S. crude inventories probably rose a third week through Jan. 23, a Bloomberg News survey shows before a government report on Wednesday.

Crude slid almost 50 percent last year as the U.S. pumped at the fastest rate in more than three decades while OPEC resisted calls to cut supply. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al- Naimi met with the ambassadors of Russia and Norway to discuss market stability, according to the kingdom’s official press agency.

West Texas Intermediate for March delivery lost as much as 78 cents to $45.45 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $45.50 at 11:25 a.m. Sydney time. The contract climbed $1.08 to close at $46.23 on Tuesday, the first gain in four days. The volume of all futures traded was about 67 percent below the 100-day average.

Brent for March settlement rose $1.44, or 3 percent, to $49.60 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange on Tuesday. The European benchmark crude ended the session at a premium of $3.37 to WTI.

U.S. crude stockpiles expanded by 12.7 million barrels last week, the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute said, according to reports on Twitter.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pratish Narayanan at pnarayanan9@bloomberg.net Aaron Clark