World oil prices climbed today on data that showed an unexpected drop in US distillate inventories last week. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, rose 24 cents to $59.95 a barrel in pit deals.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for December delivery climbed 20 cents to $58.01 a barrel in electronic trading. Prices had initially plunged over $1 as data from the US Department of Energy revealed that crude oil and petrol inventories had risen sharply in the week ending November 4.
Crude stocks rose for the fifth week, by 4.5 million barrels to 323.6 million, the DoE said. Petrol stocks climbed 4.2 million barrels to 201.1 million barrels. However distillate supplies, which include diesel and heating fuel, fell by 100,000 million barrels to 120.8 million.
A consensus forecast from analysts in London had been for a rise of 600,000 barrels. Stockpiles of crude and petrol have risen because of the recovery by US energy operations after recent hurricanes.
Prior to today's late rebound, prices had been falling since Monday partly because of unusually mild weather in the US northeast region and other energy-hungry markets across the northerm hemisphere in the run-up to their winter seasons.
By today, crude oil prices in New York had fallen by 15% since reaching a record high of $70.85 on August 30, the day after Hurricane Katrina struck the southern US and severely damaged major oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico.
