"A sign that demand is improving perhaps? Or maybe those refiners are still indifferent to increasing supply," Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., wrote in a morning note. "It was probably a little of both."
SHOOT: Demand hasn't dried up. Demand has just softened slightly. There are still hundreds of millions of vehicles - literally - gurgling on fuel every day. Of course no one is thinking about supply in the meantime, and when we do, we're likely to get something of a surprise. Because of course everyone expects that there will be energy to run a recovery. That is taken as a given. Intwisting.
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (AP) -- Oil prices surged to a 2009 high Wednesday after a government report showed that unused crude being placed in storage slowed a bit last week.
Benchmark crude for June delivery rose $1.94 to $55.78 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, levels not seen since November. Prices reached as high as $56.47 per barrel.
Demand for energy because of the recession has been decimated, leaving storage facilities more bloated than in any year since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Crude levels for the week ended May 1 rose by 600,000 barrels to 375.3 million barrels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. Analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had expected a build up of 2.2 million barrels.
An overnight report from the American Petroleum Institute showed a 1-million-barrel slip in crude oil stocks and a 2.9-million-barrel drop in gas supplies.
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