Oil climbed to $115.21 a barrel in New York, the highest since futures began trading in 1983. Oil inventories fell 2.36 million barrels to 313.7 million in the week ended April 11, the department said yesterday. Refinery capacity was 81.4 percent, the lowest since October 2005 following hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
``Refiners are probably not ordering crude oil because they don't need it,'' said Phil Flynn, a senior trader at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago. ``This is a time of year when refineries are supposed to be focusing on gasoline production, but they have no incentive this year because demand is anemic and refinery margins are poor.''
Crude oil for May delivery rose as much as 28 cents in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $114.84 a barrel at 10:23 a.m. Sydney time. Yesterday, oil futures gained $1.14, or 1 percent, to settle at $114.93 a barrel, a record close.
Prices are up 4.4 percent this week and 82 percent from a year ago.
The median price of crude oil will be $92 a barrel this quarter, according to 30 analyst forecasts compiled by Bloomberg News. The median price for the entire year will be $91.71 a barrel, the estimates show.
Refinery Margins
Lower refinery margins, or crack spreads, reduced the incentive for refiners to process oil into products, including gasoline and diesel fuel. U.S. refineries ran at 81.4 percent of capacity last week, down 1.6 percentage points from the week before.
The margin for making a barrel of crude oil into one of gasoline was negative on March 17 for the first time since February 2005, according to closing futures prices. The spread rose as high as $7.804 a barrel yesterday compared with more than $25 a year ago.
Crude-oil stockpiles were forecast to rise 1.8 million barrels last week, according to the median of responses by 15 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, where New York-traded West Texas Intermediate oil is stored, rose 860,000 barrels to 18.4 million last week. Stockpiles on the West Coast fell 2.77 million barrels to 52.1 million, the report showed. The West Coast oil market is isolated from other parts of the U.S., making it difficult for supplies to move between it and other regions.
`Buy Gasoline'
``Refineries aren't buying crude oil and they certainly aren't using it to the extent they were expected to,'' said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York. ``The decline was on the West Coast and there was a build at Cushing, which blunts some of the impact of this report.''
Gasoline inventories dropped 5.52 million barrels to 215.8 million barrels, the report showed. It was the fifth straight fall and the biggest decline since August. A 1.8 million-barrel decline was forecast in the Bloomberg News survey.
``The clear message of this data is buy gasoline,'' Evans said.
Gasoline for May delivery was up 0.46 cent to $2.9436 a gallon at 8:46 a.m. Sydney time. Earlier, it touched $2.9457, an intraday record for gasoline to be blended with ethanol, known as RBOB, which began trading in October 2005. Yesterday, it rose 5.8 cents, or 2 percent, to $2.939 a gallon, the highest-ever settlement price.
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