US crude inventories add 2.8 million barrels

Crude oil prices fell on Thursday after the US Energy Information Administration reported that while distillates inventories declined more than expected in the week ending 9 November, crude oil and gasoline stockpiles grew when they had been expected to decrease over the week.

Crude oil stockpiles were 2.8 million barrels higher during the week when they had been expected to decline by 300,000 barrels while gasoline inventories were up by 700,000 barrels on an anticipated 100,000-barrel decline.

Distillates in storage fell by 2 million barrels to 133.4 million barrels when a decline of only 300,000 barrels had been expected.

The EIA reported that refineries worked at 87.7 percent of capacity, a gain of 1.5 percent over the week before, while at the same time gasoline demand was down by 180,000 barrels during the week.

Just before the close of floor trade, West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery had dropped 54 cents to $93.55 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange while December contracts for Brent crude was 51 cents lower to $90.84 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Brent December contracts expired at the close of trade Thursday.

Nymex December gasoline was 5 cents lower to $2.32 per gallon while January heating oil fell 2 cents to $2.56 per gallon and January natural gas dropped 18 cents to $8.05 per million British thermal units.

Declines in oil prices were limited by reports that a pipeline to a major export terminal in Nigeria was ruptured by an attack and on a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency that while Iran is telling the truth about its nuclear program to UN investigators, it continues to run its nuclear enrichment program.