Crude futures fell to fresh lows immediately ahead of the 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) market settle Wednesday, as the oil complex extended an overnight selloff in US trading after equity markets slid throughout the the session.
NYMEX July crude settled down $1.88/b at $93.13/b, after hitting a low of $93.04/b shortly ahead of Wednesday's close.
The front-month contract -- which climbed as high as $95.22/b early in the session -- plunged more than $1.30/b in just over 20 minutes shortly after 11:00 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), and largely held those levels through the rest of trading.
ICE July Brent settled $1.80/b lower at $102.43/b after also falling sharply on a surge in volume late in morning US trade. The front-month contract hit a fresh low of $102.31/b shortly before 2:30 p.m. EDT after trading as high as $104.37/b earlier in the session.
Both crude contracts entirely reversed the gains seen Tuesday.
"This remains a situation where the [oil] market is just following" stock indexes, IAF Advisors analyst Kyle Cooper said, adding that equity markets in the US had also largely reversed the gains seen Tuesday.
"There is a lot of money moving around in a global risk-on, risk-off trade on sentiment, and petroleum is following that," Cooper said.
Equity markets were mixed in Asia and sharply lower in Europe Wednesday.
This came after the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development revised its 2013 and 2014 global growth expectations downward, while the International Monetary Fund decreased its expectations for Chinese growth to 7.75%, down from 8% last month, citing lower export demand.
Again Capital partner John Kilduff said that normally a growth rate at that level "would not ... engender a call to push the panic button, but China is graded on a different curve."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as low as 15,229.5 in US trading, while the Standard & Poor's 500 bottomed out at 1,640.05.
"Stocks were up yesterday on not very obvious news and they're down today on the same notion," Bill O'Grady, Chief Market Strategist at Confluence Investment Management, said, adding that recent volatility across both equity and commodity markets was tied in part to market uncertainty over the US Federal Reserve's monetary easing program.
"When you have policy uncertainty, people can panic," he added. "With oil, not a whole lot has changed, and the [market] fundamentals beyond what is going on in the financial markets are largely immaterial."
At 2:30 p.m. EDT, the Dow was 0.56% lower at 15,323.6, while the S&P 500 had shed 0.51% to 1,651.67.
The lower growth expectations were likely also contributing to the downward pressure in the oil markets, with weaker growth expected to contribute to weaker oil demand prospects.
NYMEX June RBOB closed down 4.97 cents at $2.8031/gal, while NYMEX June heating oil settled 3.71 cents lower at $2.8695/gal as a result of the crude price weakness. Both contracts expire at the close of US trade on Friday.
US inventory data was pushed back a day following the Monday's US public holiday. The American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release fresh information on US stocks at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT), with the US Energy Information Administration's numbers due Thursday morning.
Analyst polled by Platts Tuesday expect US crude inventories to decline by 1.5 million barrels, with US gasoline stocks sliding 800,000 barrels and distillate stocks down 600,000 barrels.
