By Eric Yep Asians who think they’ll benefit from sliding U.S. and European benchmark oil prices may have another thing coming. New York Mercantile Exchange and ICE crude-oil benchmarks have more or less steadily fallen for the past two months, and prices of current futures contracts are weakening relative to more distant months—evidence of weak prompt demand—but shipping data and price indicators show that demand remains strong in Asia’s physical crude markets. Storage tanks on Singapore’s Jurong island, the center of the city-state’s petroleum and petrochemical industry. Bloomberg News In a market that favors sellers, prices for the current month are higher than prices for subsequent months, a structure known as backwardation. The current Nymex benchmark contract, December, is trading around a 30-cent-a-barrel discount to the January contract, a contango structure, which is indicative of more of a buyers’ market. ICE Brent crude nearly moved into contango on Monday […]