Inventories numbers send crude oil prices higher

Metals prices were lower on Wednesday. By early afternoon trade in New York, August gold had dropped 40 cents to $652.70 per troy ounce. In other precious metals, July silver was 3 cents lower to $3.06 per troy ounce and platinum had dropped $12.90 to $1,283.50 per troy ounce.

Among base metals, both nickel and aluminium remained unchanged on the session in London. Nickel traded at $40,500 per tonne after having gone as low as $39,350 earlier in the session, while aluminium was at $2.716.5 per tonne.

Other base metals were lower on the day. Lead dropped 0.6 percent to $2,310 per tonne, while copper and zinc each lost 1 percent. Copper retreated to $7,290 per tonne even though stockpiles in London Metal Exchange warehouses were 450 tonnes lower and worries continued about strikes in Mexico and Chile. Meanwhile zinc traded at $3,675 per tonne after a delivery of 2,800 tonnes of the metal to LME warehouses in Dubai.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices were up on the session. July contracts for Brent crude were up $1.28 to $70.07 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange in London, while by mid-afternoon in New York West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery was $1 higher to $66.35 per barrel. At the same time, Nymex July gasoline was 3 cents higher to $2.16 per gallon, while heating oil had added 5 cents to $1.96 per gallon.

New inventories figures from the US Energy Information Administration showed that gasoline stockpiles in the States were even during the week ending June 8, when they had been expected to rise by 1.7 million barrels. Imports of gasoline were down by 99,000 barrels per day during the week to 10.14 million barrels, while refinery utilization that dropped to 89.2 percent from 89.6 percent on planned and unplanned shutdowns. Gasoline in storage stood at 201.5 million barrels last week, down 11.6 million barrels from last week at the same time. In addition, crude oil inventories were up by only 100,000 barrels to 342.4 million barrels, while distillates stockpiles grew by just 300,000 barrels to 122.6 million barrels.

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