Crude Oil Surges to Close Above $54 a Barrel

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rude oil prices surged Wednesday to their highest level since coming off record highs in mid-April, news services reported, and gasoline and distillate futures also climbed.

Benchmark light sweet crude oil futures rose $2.63 in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange to close at $54.60 a barrel, Bloomberg reported.

Wednesday's gain was the biggest in a single day since Dec. 15, Bloomberg said. Crude oil futures hit an all-time record when they hit $58.28 on April 4, which was followed by record diesel and gasoline prices.

The Oil Price Information Service said in a bulletin Wednesday that it was a “violent and busy session” at the Nymex, though the price spikes were absent any major causes except for an outage of a refinery in Texas, which shut down on Monday.

Bloomberg said refinery, owned by Royal Dutch Shell, would reopen Thursday.

Meanwhile, regional diesel wholesale prices were trading well above Nymex levels around the country, including in California, the Midwest and Gulf Coast, OPIS said.

Gasoline and heating-oil futures were boosted on higher demand, with more refiners shifting output to gasoline, which cut back on heating-oil production, Reuters reported.

Heating oil and diesel are both distillate fuels and their prices often run together.

The Department of Energy is scheduled to put out its weekly inventory reports for crude oil, gasoline and distillates on Thursday morning, one day later than normal because of the Memorial Day holiday this week.