NEW YORK — Oil prices tumbled Wednesday as U.S. inventories swelled with surplus crude and traders started to doubt whether OPEC would cut production further.
Benchmark crude for April delivery dropped 5 percent, or $2.37, to $43.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The Energy Information Administration said crude supplies in the U.S. climbed unexpectedly by 700,000 barrels for the week ended March 6. Analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy-information arm of McGraw-Hill, expected a drop of 1 million barrels.
Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, said the most disturbing part of the report was that national demand for distillate fuel oil dropped by 6.1 percent. Distillate fuel includes diesel fuel used by trucking companies, miners and manufacturers.
“That’s an ugly number,” Kloza said. “You’re not seeing commercial goods moved around the country like a year ago. And we were in a recession a year ago.” The Associated Press
