Crude oil futures ticked lower during midmorning trade in Asia Dec. 31 as traders engaged in profit-taking after bullish data from the US Energy Information Association pushed prices higher overnight. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now At 11:07 am Singapore time (0307 GMT), the ICE March Brent contract was down 29 cents/b (0.56%) from the Dec. 30 settle at $51.34/b while the NYMEX February light sweet crude contract fell 22 cents/b (0.45%) at $48.18/b. “Oil prices have edged lower this morning as there may be some profit-taking going on in Asia, but the underlying premise for oil has not changed — it is just not usual for prices in Asian trading to immediately follow overnight trajectories,” Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, told S&P Global Platts on Dec. 31. The ICE March Brent and the NYMEX February light […]