LONDON, Nov 16: Oil prices jumped on Wednesday following news of a surprise drop in crude and gasoline inventories in the United States, while distillates used for heating oil rose strongly to reflect warmer weather.

In a further development, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) lifted its 2006 global oil demand forecast.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, shot up 87 cents to $57.85 per barrel in pit trading, after briefly touching $58.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for January delivery gained 70 cents to $55.88 per barrel in electronic trading.

The US Department of Energy revealed that crude stocks fell for the first time in six weeks by 2.2 million barrels for the week to November 11. Analysts had pencilled in a rise of 1.6 million barrels.

“The surprising crude drawdowns have stimulated a push back to the upside, but I think it will be fairly short lived,” noted Bache Financial trader Tony Machacek, who added that overall the market “is looking fairly weak”.

Gasoline (petrol) reserves fell by 900,000 barrels, again confounding market forecasts for a 1.3-million-barrel rise.

The fall in crude and gasoline numbers came after steady rises in recent weeks as the US oil industry recovered from damaging Gulf Coast hurricanes Katrina and Rita in late August and September.

US refineries operated at 86.2 per cent of their maximum capacity over the past week, the DoE added.

Distillates stocks, used to make heating oil and diesel, posted their first rise in eight weeks to climb by 2.6 million barrels, beating analysts’ forecasts of a 600,000-barrel gain.

Simon Wardell, analyst with Global Insight, said that prices would unlikely push past $60 per barrel, “especially with the distillates building, that was the one real worry”.

Opec forecast in its monthly report that average world oil demand in 2006 would grow by 1.5 million barrels per day (mbpd) or 1.8pc to average 84.8 mbpd, marking a slight upward revision from last month’s figure.

The cartel predicted that world oil demand would increase by 1.2 mbpd or by 1.4 per cent in 2005, averaging 83.3 mbpd for the whole of 2005.—AFP