Oil Rises Over $107 Following Drop in Gasoline Inventories

Oil rose to just over $107 a barrel Wednesday following a Department of Energy reported that showed gasoline inventories last week took their biggest drop in 12 years, Bloomberg reported.

Crude futures rose 86 cents to finish the trading day at $107.11 per barrel the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg said.

Oil had plunged $3.67 on Tuesday to close at a two-week Nymex low of $106.25 a barrel on reports of lower economic growth.

That followed Friday’s $112.79 closing price, the highest since September 2008, Bloomberg figures showed.

DOE said Wednesday that crude inventories rose 1.6 million barrels last week, but distillate and gasoline supplies declined.

Distillates, which include diesel, fell by 2.7 million barrels for the week ended Saturday, while gasoline stockpiles plunged 7 million barrels, the biggest weekly drop in 12 years, DOE said.

The gasoline drop was much bigger than the 1 million-barrel decline forecast by economists, Bloomberg reported.