Oil idles at $134 after weekly inventories fall less than expected

Oil treaded water at $134 per barrel Wednesday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that weekly crude oil inventories fell a smaller-than-expected 1.2 million barrels.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected crude oil inventories to decrease by 1.75 million barrels last week. Also, gasoline supplies fell 1.2 million barrels.

The decrease in oil inventories had little affect on oil prices, at least initially. In mid-day Wednesday trading, oil was up 5 cents to $134.06 per barrel. The other major energy commodities were also virtually unchanged. Unleaded gasoline fell about 1 cent to $3.39 per gallon. Heating oil fell about 2 cents to $3.60 per gallon. Natural gas gained 7 cents to $13.02 per million BTUs.

U.S. crude oil inventories now stand at 301 million barrels and are at the lower boundary of the average range for this time of year, the EIA said. Oil inventories have dropped for five straight weeks, resulting in a reduction of 25 million barrels. Also, over the last four weeks oil imports averaged about 9.7 million barrels per day, down about 487,000 barrels per day compared to the same period a year ago.