Crude oil futures remained bullish on Wednesday as US oil inventories declined more than expectations. According to latest data of US Energy Information Administration crude oil supplies plunged by 3.1 million barrels for the week ended July 8^th, 2011. Analysts forecasted the declined to be around 2.1 million barrels for the respective week. The US oil imports for the week also declined by 854,000 barrels per day as compared to 9 million barrels per day in prior week. Moreover the weaker greenback also resulted in more gains for the crude oil.

Light, sweet crude oil futures contract for August delivery jumped 0.6 percent or $0.62 to $98.05 per barrel on Wednesday at New York Mercantile Exchange.

Economist Chris Lafakis from Moody’s Analytics commented, “Wednesday’s report supports higher crude-oil prices. The most unexpected feature of this report was the about-face in crude-oil imports, which shed almost all of their massive increase from the previous week, This caused crude oil and gasoline inventories to fall by much more than had been expected, even though petroleum demand weakened considerably.“

In June, United States also announced that it would release 30 million barrels form it reserves. In July 7 million barrels will be released while 23 million barrels of oil be released in the month of August.

Energy Information Administration also reported the decrease of 800,000 barrels in gasoline inventories while distillate fuel inventories surged by 3 million barrels for the week. Gasoline futures contract for August delivery gained 1.7 percent or $0.06 to $3.15 per barrel. Natural gas futures contract for August delivery also jumped 1.6 percent or $0.07 to $4.40 per million British thermal units.