LONDON, June 8: World oil prices rebounded on Wednesday after a surprise report from the United States’ Department of Energy (DoE) showed crude stocks dropped sharply, dealers said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, jumped 69 cents to $54.45 per barrel in early deals, after peaking at $55.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in July rose 64 cents to $53.77 per barrel.

“The main driver and the reason why the market gained close to a dollar at its peak was the shock to see the crude numbers,” said Societe Generale analyst Deborah White.

“And it’s not that the number is too low, it was just psychological. We had been expecting stocks to be basically flat,” she added.

The DoE said crude oil reserves fell 3.0 million barrels to 330.8 million in the week ending June 3, against a predicted 300,000-barrel increase.

The fall was partly explained by a fall in crude imports to 10.2 million barrels per day against 10.7 mbpd the previous week.

“Most of us had been expecting imports to come off, but not so dramatically,” White said.

Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) private survey showed a plunge of 13.77 million barrels to 321.09 million.

The large difference between the DoE and API data was a cause for concern, analysts said.

“The market prefers the DoE numbers, but it is conceivable that there could be a fall of 13 million barrels (in the API) if the previous week’s data was miscalculated,” said Monument analyst Stephen Lewis.

The DoE also reported gasoline (petrol) stockpiles had fallen by a modest 100,000 barrels to 217 million barrels, amid the ongoing US summer holiday driving season.

And distillates rose by 1.3 million barrels, the DoE added, in line with analysts’ consensus forecasts, amid fears of a shortage of heating oils during the next northern hemisphere winter.—AFP