Oil prices settle higher as U.S. crude supplies edge lower, but gasoline stockpiles climb

Oil prices finished with a gain on Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported a sixth straight weekly decline in U.S. crude inventories. The EIA report, however, highlighted a sharp decline in oil exports and refined product demand in the U.S., “as the normal seasonal decline in demand during the holiday week was exacerbated by the surge in U.S. COVID cases,” said Troy Vincent, senior market analyst at DTN. Still, oil largely shrugged off the reported sharp drop in demand and larger-than-expected builds in petroleum product supplies for the week ended Dec. 31 amid a “growing market consensus that the latest wave of COVID and accompanying decline in demand will be short-lived” and growing concerns over OPEC’s ability to delivery on their production goals, he said. February West Texas Intermediate crude CLG22, +0.83% rose 86 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $77.85 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.