Crude oil rose for a second day after a government report showed a smaller gain in U.S. inventories than the industry indicated a day earlier. Supplies increased by 1.65 million barrels to 361.1 million last week, the highest since July 1993, the Energy Department said yesterday. The industry-funded American Petroleum Institute said April 7 stockpiles jumped by 6.94 million barrels to the highest since 1990. Crude was also supported by rising global equity markets. “The fact that the Energy Department did not show as big a stock build made the market stronger,” said Christopher Bellew, senior broker at Bache Commodities in London. “Buyers had waited for the data expecting lower prices, and once it came out, people were suddenly buying at the same time.” Crude oil for May delivery rose as much as $2.08, or 4.2 percent, to $51.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $50.84 a barrel at 1 p.m. in London. Prices are up 14 percent this year. “Oil prices are likely to hover around $50 a barrel for now,” said Eugen Weinberg, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “The proximity of this psychologically important level, rising equity markets and a smaller-than-feared increase in U.S. oil inventories have given the price a boost.” The MSCI World Index added 0.6 percent to 840.57 at 12:55 p.m. in London, led by financial companies and raw-material producers. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures climbed 0.8 percent. Declining Demand Gasoline stockpiles rose 656,000 barrels to 217.4 million in the week ended April 3. Total daily fuel demand averaged over the past four weeks was 18.9 million barrels, down 4.4 percent from a year earlier, the report showed. It was the lowest consumption for a four-week period since October. Global oil demand falls to an annual low during the second quarter as refineries close to perform maintenance after winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, where New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude oil is delivered, fell 878,000 barrels to 29.98 million last week, the lowest since the week ended Dec. 26. Supplies in the week ended Feb. 6 were the highest since at least April 2004, when the Energy Department began keeping records for the location. The Cushing supplies are still above their average of 20.5 million barrels over the past five years. The excess in inventories has weighed on the May Nymex oil contract, which trades at a discount to the June future, a situation known as contango. The difference between the two is now at $2.54 a barrel, up from 69 cents a barrel a month ago. Texas Discount Brent crude oil for May settlement rose as much as $1.89, or 3.7 percent, to $53.48 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange. Brent is now trading at a premium of more than $2 a barrel to the West Texas Intermediate contract in New York, swinging from a discount of 43 cents on March 31. “The WTI-Brent differential does appear to us to be justified by the extreme imbalance” in inventories, Paul Horsnell, head of commodities research at Barclays Capital in London, said in a report today. Still, Barclays is “not overly concerned about the absolute size of the crude inventory overhang,” saying cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will siphon off the excess.

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