MW: Oil lower after higher-than-expected supply rise
By Claudia Assis
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures turned lower Wednesday after a weekly U.S. government report on supplies showed a higher-than-expected increase in crude inventories. Oil for March delivery CL2H -0.13% declined 9 cents, or 0.1%, to $98.36 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had earlier hovered around $99 a barrel. The Energy Information Administration reported inventories rose by 4.2 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 27. That contrasted with expectations of a rise by 3 million barrels according to a Platts survey. The EIA also said gasoline inventories rose 3 million barrels, and supplies of distillates declined by 100,000 barrels. The analysts had expected distillates to be down 1.2 million barrels and gasoline to rise 1 million barrels.
