Benchmark crude for September delivery dropped 21 cents to settle at $65.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after falling as low as $63.76. In London, Brent prices added 34 cents to settle at $67.21 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Energy prices got a boost this past week as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy was improving and companies reported strong second-quarter earnings.
But Wednesday, traders focused on a report by the Energy Information Administration's that showed bulging supplies of motor gasoline and distillate fuel.
The report said the country has 215.4 million barrels of motor gasoline in storage, about 3 percent more than last year. And that was when $4 gasoline had more people leaving cars parked in the driveway. Distillates, which include heating oil, are rising to their highest level since the mid-1980s.
Both illustrate how much consumers have cut back on energy consumption this year.
Retail sales for gasoline are falling, even though a gallon costs 36 percent less than last year.
Pump prices added less than a penny overnight, breaking a 30-day streak of price declines as it rose to a new national average of $2.461 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That's about 23 cents cheaper than a month ago, when gas prices peaked for the year.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures for August delivery rose 2.63 cents to settle at $1.8383 a gallon and heating oil rose 1.28 cents to settle at $1.7112 per gallon. Natural gas for August delivery added 8.8 cents to settle at $3.793 per 1,000 cubic feet.
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Associated Press writers George Jahn in Vienna, Austria and Alex
Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APNP 07-22-09 1518EDT
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