Oil Rises on Drop in U.S. Inventories

Oil prices rose more than $1 Wednesday after a U.S. government agency reported a higher-than-expected drop in the nation’s oil stockpiles.

Light, sweet crude oil for February delivery climbed $1.16, or 1.3 percent, to close at $91.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its first gain in five sessions.

It earlier rose to $92.35.

The U.S. Energy Department’s statistics and analysis Energy Information Administration unit reported U.S. crude stockpiles fell 7.6 million barrels last week to 296.9 million barrels — the lowest level since February 2005. Many analysts expected a drop closer to 1.5 million barrels.

Much of the decline was due to a million-barrel-a-day drop in imports from a fog-related closure of Houston Ship Channel last week, analysts said.

Distillate stocks, which include heating oil, dropped 2.1 million barrels, compared with an expected 500,000-barrel decline. Distillate consumption is also up compared with a year ago, the administration reported.

Gasoline inventories jumped by 3 million barrels, four times more than the 700,000-barrel increase analysts had expected.

January natural gas closed down 10.4 cents at $7.037 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Heating oil edged rallied 4.25 cents, or 1.7 percent, to settle at $2.5979 a gallon.

Reformulated-gasoline blendstock for oxygen blending jumped 2.76 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at $2.3319 a gallon.

AAA said the average U.S. retail regular unleaded gasoline price was $2.99 a gallon, down 0.2 cents from Tuesday’s $2.992 a gallon.