Oil Hits Three-Month Low; Price Drops Below $47 a Barrel

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rude oil futures hit a three-month low Thursday, falling to $46.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange following Wednesday's reports of strong crude-oil and gasoline inventories.

Futures prices rose slightly to close at $46.92 a barrel, Bloomberg reported Thursday. That was more than $11 below an all-time record set six weeks ago. Light sweet crude oil futures hit $58.28 a barrel on the Nymex April 4.

The Department of Energy’s weekly inventory report Wednesday showed crude oil supplies rose 4.3 million barrels in the week ended May 13, to 334 million barrels.

DOE’s reports for the past four weeks have shown higher-than-expected inventory levels and this week’s rise was much higher than the 1 million expected by analysts, Bloomberg reported.

Gasoline inventories also increased, rising 1.1 million barrels to 214.8 million last week, above the 980,000-barrel gain projected by analysts, Bloomberg said.

The American Petroleum Institute reported that U.S. gasoline demand fell in April, dropping 0.6% from a year earlier.

Distillate inventories, which include diesel, fell by 219,000 barrels for the week, DOE said.