Benchmark gold contract down nearly 1%, back below $1,100 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures drifted lower Wednesday as energy traders gave short shrift to bullish inventories data, while gold futures shed more than $10 an ounce. Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute reported a decrease of 3.1 million barrels in stockpiles of oil in the past week. Key weekly figures on U.S. petroleum inventories from the Energy Information Administration are due out during Wednesday's session. Analysts expect a buildup of 1.9 million barrel in crude supplies last week, according to a survey of 14 analysts by Dow Jones. Gold futures fell $10.30 to $1,092.40 an ounce on the Nymex. Crude futures dropped 20 cents to $78.66 a barrel. Commodities traders will keep a close watch on Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke's testimony before the House Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Though the top U.S. central banker has insisted that the economy still needs "accommodative monetary policies," last week's increase in the discount rate for emergency loans has raised concerns that the Fed may tighten monetary policy earlier than some in the market had anticipated. API's latest data also showed gasoline inventories rose 1.738 million barrels, higher than a forecast of 500,000 barrels, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts.

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