NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Crude futures rose slightly Wednesday, following equities higher despite a U.S. government report showing another increase in oil supplies.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery traded 16 cents, or 0.2%, higher at $82.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange traded 20 cents, or 0.2%, lower at $85.58 a barrel.
Oil inventories rose 2 million barrels in the week ended April 23, more than double the consensus forecast in a Dow Jones survey. Total crude and refined product inventories are at their highest point since December and have grown in five of the last six weekly reports.
Crude stockpiles are rising even as refiners rapidly increase their intake, operating at 89% of capacity, from 85.9% a week earlier. Refiners have lifted their utilization rate by 6.4 percentage points in the last month, though the industry is still uncertain by how much fuel demand will rise in the coming months.
With refiners producing more fuel, distillate inventories, including heating oil and diesel, rose by 2.9 million barrels, compared with an average estimate for a 1.2-million-barrel build. Gasoline stockpiles fell 1.2 million barrels, compared with expectations for a gain of 600,000 barrels.
"If demand increases later this season, refiners are ready, willing and able to supply to markets," said Mike Zarembski, senior commodities analyst with OptionsXpress in Chicago. "It's the reason why gasoline is as weak as it is."
Front-month May reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, recently traded 1.63 cents, or 0.7%, lower at $2.3105 a gallon. May heating oil traded 1.99 cents, or 0.9%, lower at $2.2104 a gallon.
Zarembski said oil market participants are more focused on other events, namely the European Union's efforts to prevent Greece's debt crisis from undermining the continent's economic recovery. Most commodities and equities markets plunged earlier in the week, but have staged a modest recovery on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was recently up 0.3% at 11024.5, while the euro had strengthened to $1.3214, from $1.3142 earlier.
-By Brian Baskin, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2453; brian.baskin@dowjones.com.
