Crude futures register fall after Energy Department shows unexpected rise in crude inventory
Crude oil futures dropped marginally today after an Energy Department report showed that U.S. inventories unexpectedly increased last week. Prices climbed earlier in the session, but then slipped closing 11 cents lower for the day.
For the day ending Wednesday, 3 October, 2007, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for November delivery closed at $79.94/barrel (lower by $0.11/barrel or 0.14%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the session, crude rose as high as $80.72 and fell as low as $79.65. Prices are up 36% from a year earlier.
Brent crude oil for November settlement declined $0.19 (0.3%) to close at $77.19 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
As per the weekly inventory report issued by the Energy Dept today, crude supplies rose by 1.2 million barrels to stand at 321.8 million barrels in the week ended 28 September. Market was expecting a decline in crude supplies. Refineries activity rose to 87.5% from 86.9%.
Motor gasoline inventories fell to 191.3 million barrels, down 100,000 barrels. Distillate supplies were pegged at 135.9 million barrels, down 1.2 million barrels on the week.
Natural gas prices drop; gasoline and heating oil rise
November natural gas dropped 15 cents (2%) at $7.277 per million British thermal units. The Energy Department will release data on natural-gas supplies tomorrow.
Against this backdrop, November reformulated gasoline gained 1.31 cents to end at $1.9959 a gallon and November heating oil gained 1.64 cents to finish at $2.1787 a gallon.
OPEC planned to boost daily oil production by 500,000 barrels. OPEC's production target is 27.2 million barrels a day, beginning 1 Nov. OPEC, has decided to raise their daily output by 500,000 barrels per day, starting 1 November.
Attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria have curtailed shipments and tight supplies from OPEC have bolstered crude prices this year. As per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, tight global energy supplies are expected to keep energy prices high through 2008.