Oil prices tumbled on Wednesday, December 7, after U.S. government data revealed a weekly decline in crude stockpiles, but petroleum-product inventories rose much more than expected.
February Brent crude LCOG7, -1.09% shed 55 cents, or 1%, to $53.38 a barrel. January West Texas Intermediate crude CLF7, -1.45% lost 73 cents, or 1.4%, to trade at $50.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at $50.41 before the supply data.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that domestic crude supplies fell by 2.4 million barrels for the week ended Dec. 2. That was larger than the 2.2 million-barrel decline reported by American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday, according to sources. Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts had expected a fall of 1.7 million barrels.
Crude inventories saw a” solid drop, despite a rebound in imports, as refining activity increased,” said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData.
But “gasoline and distillates both saw stockpiles rise as implied demand dropped for both on the prior week,” he said. “The solid builds to the products, despite being a seasonal trend, are helping to usher the crude complex lower.”
Gasoline supplies climbed by 3.4 million barrels and distillate stockpiles rose 2.5 million barrels, according to the EIA. The S&P Global Platts survey had forecast much smaller increases of 900,000 barrels for gasoline and 100,000 barrels for distillates.
On Nymex, January gasoline RBF7, -1.12% traded at $1.529 a gallon, down less than a penny, while January heating oil HOF7, -0.78% edged down by half a cent to $1.635 a gallon.
