Crude oil prices were lower Wednesday after weekly US inventories reports showed that stockpiles of oil and gasoline were up much more than had been anticipated last week.

The US Energy Information Administration said that inventories of crude oil were up 8.1 million barrels in the week to 302.6 million barrels while gasoline stockpiles added 7.2 million barrels to 186.8 million barrels but distillates, including heating oil and jet fuel, in storage dropped half a million barrels to 122.6 million barrels.

The amount of crude oil in storage was only expected to grow by 2.2 million barrels while gasoline inventories were only anticipated to go up by 1.5 million barrels during the week.

Gains in gasoline inventories came after refinery utilization was up to 80.9 percent, a gain of 8.7 percent over the previous week.

November contracts for West Texas Intermediate were down $1.10 to $88.96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after going as low as $86.05 per barrel earlier in the session, while Brent crude for November delivery dropped 27 cents to $84.39 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

The declines were limited b y the possibility that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could cut production to keep prices from falling too far.

Nymex November gasoline futures were down 3 cents to $2.03 per gallon while November heating oil fell a cent to $2.49 per gallon.

At-the-pump prices for regular unleaded gasoline were down 3.3 cents overnight to an average of $3.447 per gallon.

By Elain Frei (Oil Marketer)