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Crude oil rose above $55 a barrel for the first time since November after the American Petroleum Institute said supplies of crude and gasoline declined in the U.S., the world’s largest energy-consuming country.
U.S. crude inventories dropped by 1 million barrels, and gasoline declined by 2.9 million last week, the industry-funded API said. An Energy Department report is forecast to show that supplies rose. Companies in the U.S. cut fewer workers than economists forecast, indicating the worst of the recession’s job losses may have passed, a private report showed today.
“The API number last night gave us a little boost and then this morning there was a little bit better-than-expected jobs number,” said Tom Bentz, a senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York.
Crude oil for June delivery rose $1.77, or 3.3 percent, to $55.61 a barrel at 9:09 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $55.68, the highest since Nov. 28. Oil is up 25 percent this year.
The Energy Department is scheduled to release its weekly report at 10:30 a.m. in Washington. It may show that crude-oil inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels last week from 374.7 million in the previous week, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Refiners are producing less fuel on weaker demand for gasoline and diesel.
Gasoline stockpiles probably rose 550,000 barrels from 212.6 million the prior week, according to the survey. Supplies of distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, probably rose 900,000 barrels from 144.1 million.
Refinery Operations
U.S. refineries probably operated at 83 percent of capacity last week, up 0.3 percentage point from the previous week, according to the median of responses in the survey. That would be down from 85 percent in the same week a year earlier and 89 percent in 2007.
API collects stockpile information on a voluntary basis from operators of refineries, bulk terminals and pipelines. The government requires that reports be filed with the Energy Department for its weekly survey.
Oil-supply totals from the API and Energy Department moved in the same direction 76 percent of the time over the past four years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Brent crude oil for June settlement increased $1.36, or 2.5 percent, to $55.48 on London’s ICE Futures exchange.
