US Oil Struggles to Stay Above $100 as Gasoline Stocks Pile Up

US crude oil stocks and distillate stocks fell last week, defying expectations for a rise. The problem was gasoline stocks, which ballooned for the second week in a row with the biggest consecutive increase since January.

Crude oil prices fell nearly $2 a barrel on Wednesday after the US Energy Information Administration released weekly stockpile figures, pointing to a "demand destruction" in gasoline. West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded in New York managed to rise above the $ 100 mark again after falling below $ 99. Since hitting a five-month low of $90.58 last Thursday, WTI has been struggling to make a decisive return to triple-digit prices. In the last three sessions, it has headed towards last week's lows in Asian trade and pulled back up in the US session. In Wednesday's trading, WTI fell 51 cents, or 0.5%, to $100.23 a barrel as of 13:10 ET (17:10 GMT) after hitting an intraday low of $98.19. Brent was down 33 cents, or 0.3%, at $107.02 a barrel after a session low of $103.60. The global crude benchmark hit a nearly five-month low of $95.42 on Thursday. Gasoline stockpiles rose by about 3.5 million barrels in the week ended July 15 after rising by 5.8 million barrels in the week to July 8, the EIA said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. Industry analysts had expected an increase of 71,000 barrels last week and a decrease of 357,000 barrels the previous week. This was the biggest back-to-back increase in stocks of gasoline, the main auto fuel in the US, since the weeks of January 7 and January 14, when stocks rose by almost 14 million barrels. The increase came as the average price of gasoline at US pumps has remained stubbornly around $4.50 a gallon, considered a high level despite coming off a record peak of $5.01 a gallon in mid-June. Before this year, gasoline had rarely risen above $3.50 a gallon since 2014, even during peak summer driving periods like the current one. Economists say energy prices are among the three most important drivers of US inflation, which has been hovering at 40-year highs since last year.