Oil prices rose slightly in Wednesday afternoon trading, struggling to recover from earlier lows following weak U.S. manufacturing and housing reports. Light sweet crude for October delivery was up to nearly $72 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), where it has fallen from around $82 a barrel early this month. The slowing U.S. economy is keeping demand low for crude and gasoline. Inventories of both rose last week, staying at the upper levels of the average range for this time of year, the Energy Department reported Wednesday. Crude inventories increased by 4.1 million barrels, or 1.2 percent, to 358.3 million barrels last week, the department's Energy Information Administration (EIA) said. Gasoline supplies grew 2.3 million barrels to 225.6 million barrels, which is 8.4 percent higher than year-ago levels. Wholesale gasoline demand during the past four weeks averaged about 9.4 million barrels per day (bpd), down about 84,000 barrels from the previous week, the EIA said. In other Nymex futures trading, heating oil rose, gasoline was flat, and natural gas fell sharply. Average U.S. retail gasoline prices fell below $2.70 a gallon (3.8 liters) overnight, 4.1 cents lower than a week ago and 7.3 cents higher than a year ago, according to three price-tracking organizations.
