West Texas
Intermediate crude fell to the lowest level in five weeks after a government
report showed bigger-than-expected gains in gasoline and distillate supplies as
demand slid.
Prices
declined as much as 0.9 percent. Inventories of gasoline and distillate,
including diesel fuel and heating oil, each climbed more than twice as much as
forecast in the week ended Jan. 3. Total products supplied, a measure of
demand, tumbled 4.1 percent to the lowest level in seven months, according to a
report today from the Energy Information Administration.
Crude
prices also fell as
WTI for
February delivery dropped 75 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $92.92 a barrel at 10:47
a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The volume of all futures traded was
6.5 percent above the 100-day average.
Brent for
February settlement slid 13 cents to $107.22 a barrel on the London-based ICE
Futures Europe exchange. Volume was 4.4 percent above the 100-day average. The
European benchmark crude was at a $14.30 premium to WTI. The spread closed at
$13.68 yesterday.