Oil supplies fall a 7th straight week, but delivery hub stockpiles rise
Published: June 17, 2015 11:27 a.m. ET
U.S. oil prices struggled to hold above the $60 level Wednesday, pressured by an unexpected climb in gasoline inventories and a hefty increase in stockpiles at the futures delivery hub in Oklahoma.
Prices found little support from a seventh straight weekly decline in crude supplies and a decrease in weekly oil production.
July crude
CLN5, +0.02% was up 5 cents at $60.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at $61.13 before the supply data then began to pare gains after it, briefly turning a bit lower.
August Brent crude
LCOQ5, +0.49% on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose 37 cents, or 0.6%, to $64.07 a barrel, also paring gains.
Early Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a decline of 2.7 million barrels in crude supplies for the week ended June 12. Crude inventories have now fallen for seven weeks in a row, according to the EIA data.
Analysts polled by Platts forecast a crude-stock fall of 2.4 million barrels, while the
American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a drop of 2.9 million barrels.
Domestic production also showed a decline, with total output at 9.59 million barrels a day, down 21,000 barrels a day from a week earlier.[more]
Oil supplies fall a 7th straight week, but delivery hub stockpiles rise - MarketWatch