Concerns about levels of gasoline supplies have pushed oil prices up once again. Oil prices gained more than a dollar on New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, climbing to US$61.86 per barrel. Wednesday saw oil prices spike to a historic record of US$62.50, but it retreated by over a dollar to close at US$60.86 after stockpiles of US crude oil recorded a surprise jump. In London, Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in September reached a new high point of US$61.26 on Wednesday, but retreated to US$ US$60.76 on Thursday.
Though analysts had expected a drop of about 1.4 million barrels, the DoE revealed that crude inventories rose by 200,000 barrels to 318 million barrels. Stockpiles of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, climbed 1.5 million barrels to 127.3 million, below analysts' expectations for a rise of 2.0 million.
Fears of insufficient supplies of heating oil during the Q$- the northern hemisphere winter have kept oil prices high. Now concerns seem to have arisen about supplies of gasoline, especially as summer vacations take hold in Europe and the United States.
05-Aug-05 
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