Energy Information Administration released its inventories report on Thursday according to which crude oil inventories declined by 4.3 million barrels for the week ending June 29^th, 2012. Analysts on average expected the crude oil supplies to fell by 2 million barrels.

EIA also released its data on gasoline inventories which increased by 200,000 barrels for the respective week while analysts expected the gasoline supplies numbers to remain unchanged. Distillates inventories which include diesel and heating oil fell by 1.1 million barrels as compared to analysts’ forecasted increase of 500,000 barrels for the respective week.

Crude oil futures contract for August delivery declined 0.5 percent or $0.44 to settle at $87.22 per barrels on the New York Mercantile Exchange. London’s Brent surged 0.9 percent to $100.70 per barrel at the ICE Futures Exchange. Though the strong greenback kept pressure on commodities but traders were more shaken over the move of the European Central Bank to cut interest rates while the Bank of England announced for more quantitative easing measures. The Peoples Bank of China also surprised investors with its move of further easing measures.

The dollar index DXY which measures the US dollar’s performance against the basket of six currencies advanced to 82.791 on Thursday as compared to 82.132 on Wednesday’s North American trading session.

Among other energy commodities, gasoline futures contract for August delivery gained 1.5 percent or $0.04 to $2.76 per gallon while heating oil futures for the same month delivery advanced 0.4 percent or $0.01 to $2.77 per gallon.

Natural gas future for August delivery gained 1.6 percent or $0.05 to settle at $2.95 per million British thermal units.