Oil traded near the lowest in almost two weeks in New York after a U.S. government report showed an increase in stockpiles in the world’s second-biggest energy consumer. Brent climbed above $100 a barrel West Texas Intermediate slid 0.3 percent yesterday after an Energy Department report showed crude inventories climbed for a fourth week, the longest stretch of gains since the six weeks ended May 21. Supplies of gasoline and distillate fuels also rose. Brent in London traded above $100 for a ninth day amid continued unrest in Egypt. “Rising U.S. crude and gasoline inventories pressured WTI,” Mark Pervan, head of commodity research at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Melbourne, said in a note today. Protests in Egypt supported the “supply disruption premium in Brent,” he said. The March contract was at $86.82 a barrel, up 11 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 11:42 a.m. Sydney time. Yesterday, it slipped 23 cents to $86.71, the lowest settlement since Jan. 27. Prices are 17 percent higher than a year earlier. The more-actively traded April contract rose 14 cents to $90.24 a barrel. In London, Brent crude oil for March settlement gained 21 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $102.03 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. Crude, Fuel Supplies Brent’s premium to West Texas Intermediate widened to $15.16 a barrel from $15.11 yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gap averaged 76 cents last year. U.S. crude stockpiles increased 1.9 million barrels to 345.1 million last week, the Energy Department report showed. They were forecast to rise 2 million barrels, according to the median of 15 analyst estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Inventories of crude at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for West Texas Intermediate, declined 927,000 barrels to 37.4 million. Supplies in the week ended Jan. 28 climbed to the highest since the department started keeping records at the storage hub in 2004. Cushing is landlocked in the central U.S. Gasoline stockpiles advanced 4.66 million barrels to 240.9 million last week, the highest since March 1990, the Energy Department said. They were forecast to climb 2.6 million barrels, according to the Bloomberg News survey. Distillate fuel supplies, including heating oil and diesel, rose 288,000 barrels to 164.4 million, the Energy Department report said. They were forecast to decline 1 million barrels. Tanker Seized A 1,100-foot supertanker carrying Kuwaiti oil to the U.S. was seized by pirates off eastern Oman yesterday, the first hijacking of a vessel of that size since April. The Irene SL is carrying 270,266 metric tons of oil destined for the Gulf of Mexico, Enesel SA, its owner, said in an e-mailed statement. Pirates hijacked a record 53 ships and 1,181 crew members in 2010, most of them off Somalia, according to the London-based International Maritime Bureau. Average ransom payments rose to $5.4 million last year, compared with $150,000 in 2005, according to Louisville, Colorado-based One Earth Future Foundation, a non-profit group. Daily exports of the four North Sea crude grades that determine the price of Dated Brent are scheduled to drop 7.4 percent in March from this month. Combined shipments of Brent, Forties, Oseberg and Ekofisk oil will total 1.13 million barrels a day next month, according to Bloomberg calculations based on loading programs. That compares with 1.22 million barrels a day in February. To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Clyde Russell at crussell7@bloomberg.net

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