Nicole Friedman NEW YORK--U.S. crude-oil prices hit five-month intraday lows Wednesday, as domestic crude stockpiles reached their highest level since June amid surging U.S. production. Light, sweet crude for January delivery recently traded down $1.47, or 1.57%, to $92.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Intraday prices were at their lowest levels since June 3. Brent crude on ICE Futures Europe, which has wavered between gains and losses Wednesday, was recently down 22 cents, or 0.20%, at $110.66 a barrel. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 3 million barrels in the week ended Nov. 22, more than the 500,000-barrel build expected by analysts and traders in a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal. This is the 10th straight week of crude stockpile increases. Crude stocks now sit at 391.4 million barrels, the highest level since June 21. In the past 10 weeks, crude inventories have grown by 35.8 million barrels, a 10% increase. "There's certainly not a whole lot in today's crude number to get excited about," said Kyle Cooper, analyst at IAF Energy. Domestic crude production has soared due to hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques, which have enabled energy producers to tap into supplies trapped in shale-oil fields. The EIA also reported that distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, fell by 1.7 million barrels, a larger drop than expected. Distillate stocks are the lowest for that week since EIA began publishing weekly data in 1982, and the lowest for any week since May 23, 2008. The U.S. has produced high levels of diesel for export to Europe and Latin America in recent months. January heating oil recently fell 0.19 cent, or 0.06%, to $3.0425 a gallon. Gasoline stockpiles rose by 1.8 million barrels, higher than the 400,000-barrel rise anticipated by analysts. This week's build reverses six weeks of declines in gasoline stocks. Front-month January reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, recently traded down 0.25 cent, or 0.09%, at $2.5844 a gallon. Refining capacity utilization rose by 0.8 percentage point to 89.4% of capacity. As more refineries come back from seasonal maintenance, crude stockpiles could begin falling and product stockpiles could grow, Mr. Cooper said. Historically, refineries try to reduce their crude stockpiles before year-end tax assessments based on storage levels, he said. Write to Nicole Friedman at nicole.friedman@wsj.com

Source