Crude oil in New York plummeted to the lowest price in eleven weeks and gasoline futures declined on forecasts that American motor fuel supplies will increase. Futures declined by 0.6 percent as a Bloomberg News survey pointed towards a gasoline stockpiles rise of one million and eight hundred and fifty thousand barrels last week from 240.9 million, the highest level since the year of 1990. Crude oil supplies at Oklahoma, Cushing, the biggest U. S. trading hub, went up to the highest level after at least the year of 2004 in the week that got over on Jan. 28. Gasoline and oil were also led lower by Brent crude in London. Gasoline inventories here are too strong and the demand here, in contrast is not that much said the director of research for IAF Advisors in Houston, Kyle Cooper. Brent and WTI are not sought because of record number of oil stockpiles at Cushing which is the delivery point for the New York contract, he said. Oil meant for March delivery went down by forty nine cents to settle at eighty four dollars and thirty two cents per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest level since Nov. 30. Futures have gone up by fourteen percent in the past year. Prices almost remained intact from the settlement following the American Petroleum Institute’s reporting at 4:30 p. m. that U. S. crude-oil stockpiles decreased three hundred and fifty four thousand barrels to 345.6 million. March oil declined as many as forty six cents or half a percent, to hit eighty four dollars and thirty five cents a barrel in electronic trading at 4:32 p. m. Gasoline meant for March delivery declined by two dollars and eighty six cents or 1.1 percent, to reach $2.4888 a gallon on the Nymex. Prices have increased twenty nine percent in the past year.

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