Crude-oil futures climbed Wednesday to touch a high of $62 a barrel after U.S. data showed that supplies of crude declined for the first time in three weeks and distillate and gasoline inventories have been falling for several weeks.
"Import dynamics caused surprises in inventory changes," said Jason Schenker, an economist at Wachovia Corp.
"Lower crude and gasoline imports engendered a surprise draw in crude inventories and a larger-than-expected gasoline draw," he said an in e-mailed note to clients. And "the distillate inventory draw was mitigated by increased imports."
Crude for April delivery was last up $1.16 at $61.85 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, following a climb to as high as $62.
Looking at the charts from This Week In Petroleum, we see that gas inventories have been dropping for the last few weeks while the oil inventory just dropped this week.
Here's another chart of interest -- gas prices:
They've been ticking up lately.
