NEW YORK--Crude-oil futures were lower, near $95 a barrel, at mid-morning Wednesday after U.S. government data showed an unexpected rise in crude-oil stockpiles in the week before precautionary shutdowns of facilities ahead of Hurricane Isaac.
October-delivery crude-oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropped to a low of $94.93 a barrel after the Energy Information Administration reported stocks rose 3.778 million barrels last week. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected a drop of 1.5 million barrels in crude-oil stocks in the week.
Prices bounced around but remained weak as traders digested the data. Nymex crude oil was $1.33 lower, at $95 a barrel. The contract hasn't settled below $95 since Aug. 15.
The EIA also reported gasoline stocks fell 1.5 million barrels, slightly more than the expected 1.2-million-barrel drop. Distillate stocks--diesel fuel and heating oil--rose 873,000 barrels, against expectations of a drop of 100,000 barrels.
Tim Evans, analyst at Citi Futures Perspective, said the EIA report was "net bearish overall" for prices of crude oil and petroleum products.
While demand for gasoline was little changed in the week, at just above nine million barrels a day, it was 1.8% below that of a year earlier.
Late in the summer season, gasoline stocks dropped 0.7% in the week to the lowest level since May 25, 2012, the start of summer Memorial Day holiday time. Inventories are 3.6% below a year earlier.
Reformulated gasoline blendstock futures for September were 1.31 cents lower, at $3.113 a gallon. Heating-oil futures were down 1.19 cents, at $3.1084 a gallon. EIA reported demand for distillate fuel in the week was 12.8% below a year earlier, at 3.563 million barrels a day, a three-year low for the week.
Apart from the data, the market was awaiting damage assessments and restart timetables for facilities that were shut down ahead of Hurricane Isaac.
The storm continued to lash heavy rains around the New Orleans area, amid warning of potential spin-off tornadoes, keeping traders on edge about the near-term supply picture. The situation may not be clear for days as crews assess facilities, analysts said.
In advance of the storm, key pipelines and facilities were shut down and government data show more than 93% of Gulf oil output, or nearly 1.3 million barrels a day of crude-oil output, was curtailed. The Energy Department estimated some 936,500 barrels a day of crude-oil refining capacity was offline in the key Gulf region. The American Petroleum Institute, in its weekly oil data released late Tuesday, showed coastal refineries in Texas and Louisiana were processing about seven million barrels a day last week, ahead of the storm.
Write to David Bird at david.bird@dowjones.com.
CORRECTION: This article has been corrected to fix the percentage change in week-to-week and year-to-year gasoline inventories in the seventh paragraph. Gasoline stocks dropped 0.7% in the week, not 1.2%, and were 3.6% below a year earlier, not 4.8%. The year-on-year shortfall in gasoline stocks wasn't the biggest since mid-June. In the week ended Aug. 17, the shortfall versus the year earlier was 4.1%.
