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rude oil and distillate inventories both rose more than expected in the Department of Energy’s weekly inventory report issued Wednesday, sending crude and heating-oil futures prices lower, Bloomberg reported.
Benchmark light sweet crude oil futures fell $1.14 on the New York Mercantile Exchange to close at $57.26 a barrel on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported.
Crude oil inventories rose 1.1 million barrels last week, DOE said, well above expectations that crude stocks would fall 1.4 million barrels.
Distillate inventories, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, rose 1.7 million barrels for the week, above expectations of a 1.5 million barrel gain, Bloomberg said.
Heating-oil fugures fell to $1.59 a gallon on the Nymex after reaching $1.67 Monday, Bloomberg reported.
Diesel prices, which reached a record $2.336 in DOE’s latest retail survey Monday, have risen in part because of concern about relatively low distillate stocks and high demand, news services reported.
That followed Tuesday’s price plunge of $2.34 a barrel, the biggest in six weeks.
il had hit an all-time high of $60.95 Monday and closed above $60 that day for the first time.
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