Oil Pushes Past $62 a Barrel to Six-Month High
Oil prices rose almost $2 to a six-month high of more than $62 a barrel Wednesday after a Department of Energy report showed that inventories fell last week, Bloomberg reported.
Crude futures rose $1.94 to close at $62.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest closing price since Nov. 10, Bloomberg said.
Oil prices have risen 36% this year but are still well below the record Nymex closing price of $145.29 a barrel set last July.
DOE said Wednesday that crude stockpiles fell by 2.1 million barrels last week, a bigger downturn than analysts’ forecasts of a 400,000 barrel decline, Bloomberg reported.
Gasoline inventories fell by 4.3 million barrels, greater than the 1.2 million barrel downturn that was forecast, Bloomberg said.
Distillates, which include diesel, rose by 600,000 barrels for the week ended Saturday, DOE said in its weekly report. Oil refineries operated at 81.8% of capacity, down 1.9% from the previous week.
