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Crude Ticks Up After Data

Kristina Shevory

Crude futures inched up slightly Thursday after domestic oil supplies plunged by more than three times the amount that analysts were expecting.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery closed up 19 cents at $60.53 a barrel. Trading was light again since many traders are either on vacation or not willing to make large bets on energy prices before the end of the year.

The U.S. Energy Department reported that crude stockpiles plummeted by 8.1 million barrels last week, a much sharper drop than the 2.5-million-barrel decline that was anticipated.

However, the drawdown was largely chalked up to the closing of three shipping channels in Texas and Louisiana because of fog last week. Many of the country's refineries are located along those waterways.

At the same time, the shutdown didn't affect refining operations, except for those at Royal Dutch Shell's(RDS.A Quote) Deer Park refinery. Refiners increased their operations by 0.2 percentage points to 90.9% last week and made more distillates and gasoline.

Stockpiles of distillates climbed by 500,000 barrels, while gasoline skyrocketed by 3 million barrels on higher imports. Higher gasoline supplies will come in handy as demand rises amid mild temperatures.

Americans are taking more road trips as unseasonably warm weather blankets much of the country, boosting consumption by 1.6% on average over the past four weeks.

The increase in crude futures pushed up prices for natural gas and heating oil despite warm weather forecasts and high supplies. The National Weather Service expects mild temperatures to persist in much of the nation through the beginning of next month.

Natural gas inched up 10 cents to $6.24 per million British thermal units, and heating oil rose 1 cent to finish trading at $1.62 a gallon.

Analysts are expecting to see a drop of 65 billion cubic feet in last week's data, according to a Bloomberg poll. The Energy Department will release the natural gas supply figures a day late on Friday because of the government shut down on Monday for Christmas.

ConocoPhillips(COP Quote), Hess(HES Quote) and Marathon Oil(MRO Quote) led the advances among drilling and refining companies.

Oil service firms Tidewater(TDW Quote) and Baker Hughes(BHI Quote) were also higher.