Hedge funds and other money mangers have sold petroleum for a fifth consecutive week, according to a report by Reuters, although the rate of selling has slowed somewhat with the equivalent of 15 million barrels in the six most important petroleum-related futures and options contracts having been offloaded in the week ending 13 December.

The report cites position records published by ICE Futures Europe and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission as revealing that total sales by fund managers over the five weeks since 8 November, now total some 236 million barrels.

The most recent week, saw continued sales of Brent (-6 million barrels), US diesel (-7 million) and US gasoline (-5 million), but no change in European gas oil.

For the first time in five weeks, however, there was small buying in NYMEX and ICE WTI (+2 million barrels), marking an important shift in sentiment.