Crude-oil futures fell Wednesday, retreating for a third session and briefly tumbling 6% to well below $37 a barrel, as government data showed increased inventories at a key delivery point. Crude inventories at Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for crude futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reached 28.7 million barrels in the week ended Dec. 19, the Energy Information Administration reported. It was the highest since at least April 2004, when the government started collecting Cushing data. This served to overshadow the government's latest weekly reading on petroleum stockpiles. "The downward pressure in oil prices is from the exceptionally high stocks of oil at Cushing, although total crude inventories fell," said James Williams of WTRG Economics. "People pay more attention to Cushing inventories." Crude for February delivery was last down $1.58, or 4.1%, at $37.40 a barrel in Nymex dealings. It lost as much as $2.35, or 6%, to $36.63 a barrel overnight in electronic trading. The EIA also reported total U.S. crude-oil stockpiles, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, fell for the first week in three, down 3.1 million barrels to 318.2 million for the week ended Dec. 19. Analysts surveyed by energy information provider Platts had been looking a weekly increase of 1.5 million barrels. Gasoline supplies rose by 3.3 million barrels in the latest week, while distillate stocks increased 1.8 million barrels, EIA reported. Total supplies of petroleum products, including gasoline and heating oil, have averaged about 19.8 million barrels a day over the last four-week period, down by 4.2% compared to the similar period last year, the EIA said. Also last week, refineries ran at 84.7% of their operable capacity, up slightly from the prior week. The figures on inventories played out against a backdrop further underscoring the weakened state of the U.S. economy, the world's biggest oil consumer. The nation's labor market continued to worsen in the latest week, with claims for jobless benefits hitting levels last seen 26 years ago, government data showed. Separately, orders for U.S.-made durable goods fell 1% in November, the Commerce Department estimated, as orders for transportation goods fell 7.4%. Oil was falling "as a continuing barrage of poor macroeconomic news hit the markets," wrote Edward Meir, an energy analyst at MF Global. In other energy trading, January reformulated gasoline fell 2.6% to 83.40 cents a gallon. January heating oil fell 3.5% to $1.281 a gallon.

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