Oil Slips, as Monthly Price Drops by Most Since May
Oil prices fell slightly Wednesday to near $89 a barrel, capping the biggest monthly decline since May, Bloomberg reported.
Crude futures slipped 9 cents to $88.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, following four days of advances, Bloomberg said.
Oil has declined almost $7 since the end of July, and earlier in the month closed under $80 a barrel for the first time in almost a year. Tuesday’s $88.90 closing price had been the highest since Aug. 3.
The Department of Energy reported Wednesday that crude and distillate inventories rose last week but said gasoline supplies fell 2.8 million barrels, more than the 1.1 million-barrel decline forecast by economists, Bloomberg reported.
Crude supplies jumped by 5.3 million barrels, while distillates, which include diesel, gained 360,000 barrels. Demand for distillates over a four-week period was up 5.5% over a year ago, DOE said.
Gasoline futures also rose on the Nymex as traders monitored Tropical Storm Katia, brewing in the mid-Atlantic, that could become a hurricane and move toward the Caribbean this weekend, Bloomberg said.
