Oil was below $81 a barrel in trading on Thursday. U.S. crude for delivery in May fell by $0.08 to $80.53 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude was down $0.12 to $79.50 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London.
Earlier, on Wednesday, the ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Crude Oil (ETF) (NYSE: SCO) was up 0.83% to $13.30 in after-hours trading, while the PowerShares DB Oil Fund (ETF) (NYSE: DBO) closed 1.70% lower at $27.16.
On Wednesday, the Energy Department in U.S. announced that crude oil inventories were up by 7.3 million barrels to 351.3 barrels last week. The higher-than-expected inventory data suggests that demand remained weak in the world’s largest consumer of crude oil.
