Oil prices were stable Wednesday after official data showed crude stockpiles fell in the United States, the world's biggest consumer of crude. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, ended at $68.05 a barrel, unchanged from Tuesday's closing price. London's Brent North Sea crude for October fell six cents to $67.66 a barrel. The US Department of Energy on Wednesday said the country's crude stockpiles fell by 400,000 barrels in the week to Aug. 28, matching analysts' consensus forecast. Gasoline stockpiles fell by three million barrels, far steeper than expected. But the markets were hardly impressed with the drop in reserves. “On the surface, US oil data for the last week of August are among the most bullish in quite a while, but they come with hidden pitfalls,” said Antoine Halff of Newedge USA. Meanwhile, gold prices surged Wednesday, breaking out of a narrow trading range that has been a constraint for months. Gold for December delivery jumped $22, or 2.3 percent, to $978.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange - its highest close since June 4 and the biggest one-day jump since March 19 when the metal jumped more than $69. Since the beginning of June, gold has traded between about $910 and $980 an ounce, but more recently, prices have ranged between $930 and $970 an ounce.
