Crude gains slightly on inventories, Venezuela worries

Crude oil prices were higher on Wednesday as investors paid more attention to supply worries overseas than they did to gains in US crude oil and gasoline inventories in the United States, which were less than expected last week.

The US Energy Information Administration reported that crude oil inventories gained 1.1 million barrels to 301.1 million barrels in the week ending 8 February, under an expected gain of 2.7 million barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles added 1.7 million barrels last week, slightly less than anticipated.

Distillates in storage dropped by 100,000 barrels to 127 million barrels, but those declines were much less than the 1.2 million barrel drop that had been expected.

Concerns remained that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might follow through on his threats to cut oil sales to the United States after billions of dollars in assets of the state-owned oil company in Venezuela were frozen by courts after ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) brought suit to recover losses from the nationalization of some projects it had interests in in the South American nation.

In afternoon trade, West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery had added 42 cents to $93.20 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Nymex March gasoline was up 4 cents to $2.41 per gallon while March heating oil was 2 cents higher to $2.61 per gallon and March natural gas had gained 9 cents to $8.53 per million British thermal units.