Volatile Trading on Wednesday Results in Lower Crude Oil Settlements

Oil futures ended lower in volatile trading on Wednesday after a weekly U.S. government report revealed a surprise rise in crude stockpiles, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.

December West Texas Intermediate crude fell 39 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $56.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

January Brent crude, the global benchmark, lost 20 cents, or 0.3%, to end trading at $63.49 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange.

“There’s something for both bulls and bears in this week’s inventory report, with a bearish build to crude stocks versus consensus, and bullish chunky draws for both gasoline and distillates,” said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that domestic crude supplies rose by 2.2 million barrels for the week ending November 3. That was contrary to the forecast for a decline of 2.7 million barrels from analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts. On Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute reported a nearly 1.6 million-barrel decline.

Meanwhile, December natural gas climbed by 2.3 cents, or 0.7%, to end trading at $3.175 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Total domestic crude production saw a weekly climb of 67,000 barrels a day to 9.62 million barrels a day, according to the EIA data. Recent gains in the price of oil have raised concerns that U.S. producers have found incentive to lift crude output.