Oil
declined after a government report showed that
Futures
fell after the Department of Energy said crude stockpiles rose 1.31 million
barrels to 361.3 million last week. A 2 million-barrel gain was the median
estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Gasoline and distillate inventories
also rose. Crude output climbed to 7 million barrels a day, the most since
1993. The
Increasing
output in the
Crude
imports rose 18 percent to 8.34 million barrels a day, the first gain in four
weeks. Fuel imports increased 7.8 percent to 2.09 million barrels a day last
week.
Gasoline
inventories climbed 7.41 million barrels to 233.1 million, versus an expected
gain of 2.5 million. Distillate inventories increased 6.78 million barrels to
130.7 million, versus a forecast advance of 1.9 million.
Refineries
operated at 89.1 percent of capacity last week, the report showed, down from
90.4 percent the previous week.
The Energy
Department raised its oil-price projections for 2013 yesterday and forecast
that global consumption will expand to a record. WTI will average $89.54 a
barrel, up 1.3 percent from the December estimate of $88.38, it said in the
monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook. The
Crude oil
for February delivery fell to $92.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract traded at $93.45 before the release of the inventory report at
10:30 a.m. in
Brent oil
for February settlement slipped 58 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $111.36 a barrel
on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The North Sea crude traded at
an $18.44 premium to the
