Oil futures settled close to $42 a barrel on Wednesday after a government report revealed an increase in both gasoline and oil inventories in addition to a rise in crude production, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, September West Texas Intermediate crude dropped 91 cents, or 2.1%, to settle at $42.01 a barrel.
September Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell $1.10, or 2.5%, to end trading at $43.77 a barrel on London’s ICE Future Exchange.
Earlier in the day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 1.7 million barrels of domestic crude oil supplies for the week ending July 22. Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts expected a 2.6 million-barrel decline. On Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute reported a fall of 827,000 barrels.
“With a surprising build in U.S. crude oil inventories today along with builds in Cushing, Okla., we expect prices to trade below some key technical numbers,” said John Macaluso, an analyst at Tyche Capital Advisors.
Meanwhile, August natural gas futures gained 1.8 cents, or 0.7%, settling at $2.73 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.