NEW YORK — Oil prices soared by more than $4 a barrel Wednesday, halting a steep two-week slide after a surprise drop in U.S. gasoline supplies fed speculation that record fuel prices aren’t keeping Americans off the roads.
But energy-market analysts offered mixed views on whether prices would swing back toward record levels above $147 a barrel hit earlier this month or whether Wednesday’s big rally was just a temporary bump.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery jumped $4.58 to settle at $126.77 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier rising as high as $127.39. It was crude’s biggest one-day rally since July 10, when prices ended $5.60 higher. Oil closed $2.54 lower Tuesday at $122.19 a barrel.
The Energy Information Administration said in its weekly inventory report that U.S. gasoline supplies fell by 3.5 million barrels last week. Analysts surveyed by energy-research firm Platts expected gas supplies to increase by 400,000 barrels. U.S. crude stockpiles also fell by 100,000 barrels last week, less than the 1.3 million barrels analysts had predicted.
The report gave some traders reasons to believe that crude’s slide was overblown and that the drop in gas supplies means prices have fallen enough to nudge Americans back onto the roads.
“It’s stopping the bearish momentum that we’ve seen over the last few days,” Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago, said of the decline in gas supplies.
