EIA: Crude oil stockplies up 3.7 mb last week in US

Oil prices slid Wednesday after the US Energy Information Administration said that US inventories of crude oil, gasoline, and distillates all were up more than expected last week.

New numbers issued by the EIA showed that crude oil stockpiles in the United States added 3.7 million barrels last week against an expected rise of just 1.9 million barrels, while gasoline inventories were up 3.8 million barrels when they had been expected to go up by 1.6 million barrels and distillates in storage, including heating oil and diesel fuel, were up 1.4 million barrels after being expected to drop by 1.7 million barrels.

The increases raised new worries about swelling inventories at a time of weak demand.

In midday trade, February contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude were down 99 cents to $79.80 per barrel after going as low as $78.37 per barrel earlier in the session in the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Meanwhile, at last report February Brent crude had dropped $1.91 to $77.39 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

At mid-morning in New York, Nymex February gasoline futures were 6 cents lower to $2.04 per gallon while February heating oil had dropped 5 cents to $2.09 per gallon.

The retail price of a gallon of gasoline in the US, however, was up less than a cent overnight to $2.757 per gallon on average, more than 15 cents more than last month at the same time.