Crude prices fall on new EIA data

Crude oil prices were lower Wednesday after the US Energy Information Administration said in its weekly US inventories report that crude oil, gasoline and distillates supplies were all higher last week.

November contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude had dropped $2.80 near the close of floor trade to $68.96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange while at last report Brent crude was $2.60 lower to $67.93 on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Stockpiles of crude oil, which had been expected to decline by as much as 2.25 million barrels, were instead up by 2.8 million barrels last week, while gasoline inventories grew by 5.4 million barrels last week and distillates in storage grew by 3 million barrels.

Nymex October gasoline futures were down around 8 cents to $1.70 per gallon while November heating oil futures dropped 5 cents to $1.79 per gallon.

December copper was 6 cents lower to $2.18 per pound in New York trade while three-month copper fell $144 to $6,126 per tonne in London as London Metal Exchange inventories added 175 tonnes during the day and investors worried about a decline in demand for the metal from China.

Most other base metals also saw price declines, including a drop of $16 to $1,873 per tonne for aluminium, which still remains near record high inventories in LME warehouses, while zinc was down $43 to $1,903 per tonne, lead dropped $49 to $2,240 per tonne, and tin prices remained unchanged at $14,650 per tonne.

Nickel added $125 to $17,875 per tonne in London trade.

Precious metals prices also fell as December gold dropped $1.10 to $1,014,40 per troy ounce, December silver was down 21 cents to $16.92 per troy ounce, October platinum was $11.40 lower to $1,330.70 per troy ounce and December palladium dropped $4.75 to $297.65 per troy ounce.

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