* U.S. crude stockpiles hit record high, fuel draws down
* U.S. shale companies to boost oil output by 500,000 bpd by
month-end
* Beijing extends movement curbs over new virus outbreak
* WHO hails 'great news' from COVID-19 drug study
(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments
to settlement)
By Laura Sanicola
NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - Oil prices settled lower on
Wednesday on fuel demand worries due to an uptick in coronavirus
cases, with emerging hotspots in China and the United States,
and as U.S. crude stocks grew again, taking commercial
inventories to another all-time high.
Brent crude LCOc1 settled down 25 cents, or 0.6 %, at
$40.71 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) CLc1 fell
42 cents, or 1.1%, to $37.96 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories rose to a record high last week for a
second straight week, reaching more than 539 million barrels.
Conversely, distillate stockpiles USOILD=ECI fell following
weeks of significant builds, government data showed.
The World Health Organization said it would update its
guidelines after results showed the corticosteroid medication
dexamethasone cut death rates among severely ill COVID-19
patients. However, the virus is spreading in parts of the United
States, while flights were cancelled and schools were shut in
Beijing to head off a new virus outbreak in the Chinese capital.
"Today's slide seems to be related to the build we saw in
crude stockpiles and ongoing worries about demand due to the
coronavirus," said Gene McGillian, vice president of market
research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. "The
market is trying to find whether it has enough strength to
resume its rally that took us above three-month highs."
U.S. fuel demand, as measured by product supplied, is down
20% over the past four weeks from a year earlier, the government
said.
U.S. crude production fell by 600,000 barrels per day last
week to 10.5 million bpd, its lowest since March 2018. Some of
that was due to Storm Cristobal, which shut more than one-third
of U.S. offshore output.
However, U.S. shale producers were expected to restore
roughly half a million bpd of crude output by the end of June,
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