Oil slightly lower on inventories data

Oil futures are trading modestly lower in Asia Thursday after a higher-than-expected U.S. inventories report was published on Wednesday.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for April delivery are off 0.29% at USD92.25 per barrel in Asian trading Thursday after settling lower by 0.54% at USD92.04 a barrel on Wednesday in the U.S.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said oil inventories rose by 2.624 million barrels last week, down from 3.833 million in the preceding week but above market calls for a gain of 2.338 million barrels.

Gasoline inventories fell by 3.571 million barrels, well above a decline of 616,000 barrels a week ago and beyond market calls for a decline of 1.163 million barrels.

Oil traders opted to focus on those numbers rather than a pair of encouraging U.S. data points. In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department said U.S. retail sales rose 0.6% last month. Core sales, excluding gasoline and construction sales, rose 0.4%. Auto sales climbed 1.1% after rising 0.4% in January. Continue Reading....