Crude Oil and Natural Gas Settlements Mired on Wednesday

Oil futures settled lower on Wednesday following the U.S. Energy Information Administration report which revealed a significant but lower than expected drop in crude inventories, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.

September West Texas Intermediate crude shed 77 cents, or 1.6%, to settle at $46.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

On the London ICE Futures Exchange, October Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell 53 cents, or 1%, to end trading at $50.27 a barrel.

On Wednesday, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration revealed a rise of 79,000 barrels a day in total crude oil production to 9.502 million barrels a day, marking the highest output figure since mid-July 2015. The EIA also said that supplies of crude oil for the week ending August 11 fell by 8.9 million barrels, more than double the decline of 3.6 million barrels expected by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts, but below the 9.2 million-barrel decrease reported by the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday.

September natural gas also fell 4.5 cents, or 1.5%, to settle at $2.89 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.