Oil Tops $42 After Fuel Inventory Reports
Oil futures price rose $2.54 Wednesday to settle at $42.50 per barrell on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Associated Press reported.
The rise in cost of light, sweet crude for April delivery came as the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Service showed that gasoline inventories in the U.S. dropped almost 2% in the week ended Feb. 20, AP said.
But EIA also reported that inventories of distillate fuels such as diesel rose by 800,000 barrels to 141.6 million barrels in the same period, AP said.
Gasoline demand was up 1.7% in the week ended Feb. 20 compared to last year, the EIA’s report said.
