US crude stockpiles up by 6.9 million barrels last week

Crude oil prices were down significantly on Wednesday after the US Energy Information Agency released its latest weekly inventories data. July contracts for Brent crude on the Intercontinental Exchange dropped $2.00 to $69.84 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery fell $1.75 to $67.35 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after the EIA said that crude oil stockpiles jumped by 6.9 million barrels in the week ending June 15. Analysts had expected the inventories to go up by only 100,000 barrels.

Gasoline inventories were also higher, adding 1.8 million barrels against an expectation that they would go up by just 1 million barrels. The gain in gasoline stockpiles came even though refinery utilization dropped by 1.6 percent to 87.6 percent last week, the third week in a row that utilization has declined. Nymex July gasoline futures dropped 4.7 cents to $2.1879 per gallon on news of the higher inventories.