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 By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for August delivery was
down 82 cents to $93.35 a barrel in electronic trading on the New
York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 54 cents to settle at
$94.17 on Tuesday.
In London, Brent crude for August delivery was down 41 cents to
$110.54 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude
inventories fell 81,000 barrels last week while analysts surveyed by
Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had
predicted a drop of 2.0 million barrels.
Inventories of gasoline dropped 1.5 million barrels last week,
surprising analysts who had forecast an increase of 1 million
barrels. Distillates fell 541,000 barrels, the API said.
The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reports
its weekly supply data -- the market benchmark -- later Wednesday.
"Demand figures have not been strong and we still have more crude
oil in storage than in previous years," energy consultant Cameron
Hanover said in a report. A stronger dollar also weighed on prices by making commodities like
oil more expensive for investors holding other currencies. A
stronger dollar usually pushes down crude prices.
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The euro slipped to $1.4366 from $1.4416 in late trading in New
York, while the dollar strengthened to 80.23 yen from 80.13 yen.
"Markets are ... slightly weaker as they wait for the vote on the
Greek austerity package, but likely ready to rally if and when it
passes," said Edward Meir at MF Global in New York. "However, the
bounce will be brief, as there are still serious problems remaining
in Europe. For one thing, other countries are experiencing severe
debt issues."
In other Nymex trading in July contracts, heating oil fell 1.75
cents to $2.8725 a gallon while gasoline lost 0.01 cent to $2.8825 a
gallon. Natural gas futures fell 1.6 cents to $4.372 per 1,000 cubic
feet.
[Associated
Press; By PABLO GORONDI]
Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed
to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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