Oil Gains $4 to More Than $79 a Barrel
Gain Is Biggest Since May
Oil took its biggest single-day jump in five months Wednesday, rising $4 to more than $79 a barrel following a report that showed inventories plunged last week, Bloomberg reported.
Crude futures rose $4.01 to finish the trading day at $79.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg said.
Tuesday’s $75.67 per-barrel closing price was the lowest in more than a year, since late September 2010.
Prices rose following a Department of Energy report that showed crude inventories plunged by 4.7 million barrels last week.
Economists had forecast a 1.5 million barrel increase in oil stockpiles for the week ended Saturday, Bloomberg reported.
The report also showed that crude imports fell 10% last week to 8.7 million barrels a day, Bloomberg said.
Gasoline supplies slipped 1.1 million barrels, DOE said in its weekly report. Distillates, which include diesel, fell by 700,000 barrels.
DOE reported Monday that diesel and gasoline prices fell for a fourth straight week, to near $3.75 and $3.43 per gallon, respectively.
