Crude Oil Prices Drop Below $77 After EIA Report

Sponsored Links

Crude oil prices plunged below $77 on Thursday after the Energy Information Administration reported inventories rose more than expected last week.

Light sweet crude for December fell to $76.94 per barrel, down $2.34 on the session. Prices dropped as low as $76.72.

EIA data showed crude oil inventories increased by 1.8 million barrels from the previous week. An more modest increase of about 1 million barrels was expected. At 337.7 million barrels. U.S. crude oil inventories are slightly above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels last week. A rise of 700,000 barrels was expected. Distillate fuel inventories increased by 300,000 barrels, compared to the drop of 900,000 expected by analysts. Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.2 million barrels last week and are in the upper half of the average range.

Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline demand has averaged 8.9 million barrels per day, down by 1.0 percent from the same period last year. Distillate fuel demand has averaged 3.6 million barrels per day, down by 13.8 percent from the same period last year and jet fuel demand is 4.0 percent lower over the last four weeks compared to the same four-week period last year.

In economic news, a Labor Department report showed that initial jobless claims fell to 502,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 514,000. Economists had been expecting claims to edge down to 510,000 from the 512,000 originally reported for the previous week.

(Market News Provided by RTTNews)