Oil prices higher on inventories, political unrest

Crude oil prices were higher on Thursday as geopolitical news was bad and new US inventories data wasn’t much better.

The assassination of Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto raised questions of increased instability in the region, while new reports emerged that Turkish forces again attacked Kurdish rebels in northern Iran earlier in the week.

Meanwhile, the US Energy Information Administration reported that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 3.3 million barrels in the week ending 21 December, over twice the anticipated decline, even though imports were up during the week.

Distillates stockpiles were also down much more than had been expected, by 2.8 million barrels against an expected decline of only 800,000 barrels.

Gasoline inventories added 700,000 barrels even though imports were down, but analysts had expected stockpiles to rise by 1.4 million barrels during the week.

Just before the close of floor trade in New York, West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery was 65 cents higher to $96.62 per barrel while Brent crude added $1.75 to $95.69 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Nymex January gasoline added 4 cents to $2.49 per gallon while February heating oil was also 4 cents hither to $2.68 per gallon and March natural gas gained 3 cents to $7.24 per million British thermal units.