Oil Hits Another Record; Price Recedes Following Inventory Gains

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rude oil hit a third record in three days Wednesday, climbing to $62.50 a barrel before receding after the weekly Department of Energy inventory reports for oil, distillate fuels and gasoline.

Benchmark light sweet crude oil futures fell $1.03 from Tuesday's record closing price to finish the trading session at $60.86 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg reported.

Crude oil prices had hit a record $62.20 Monday on the Nymex and reached record high closing prices both Monday and Tuesday, of $61.57 and $61.89, respectively.

DOE’s report showed crude inventories rose almost 200,000 barrels, better than a projected decline of 1.3 million, Bloomberg reported. Crude oil futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by a dollar immediately following the report.

Distillate inventories — which include diesel and heating oil — rose for an 11th straight week, growing by 1.5 million barrels, though short of analysts’ expectations of a 2 million-barrel build, Bloomberg reported.

asoline stocks had a bigger draw-down than expected of 4 million barrels, which sent gasoline futures prices higher, Bloomberg said.

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