Oil up more than 4% as U.S. stockpiles fall, hurricane hits output | Reuters

Oil up more than 4% as U.S. stockpiles fall, hurricane hits output | Reuters:

Oil prices jumped more than 4% on Wednesday, following a drawdown in U.S. crude and gasoline inventories and as Hurricane Sally forced a swath of U.S. offshore production to shut.

Brent crude LCOc1 settled at $42.22 a barrel, up $1.69, or 4.2%. U.S. crude CLc1 finished $1.88, or 4.9%.at $40.16 a barrel.

U.S. crude stocks fell 4.4 million barrels last week to 496 million barrels, their lowest since April, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.3 million-barrel rise.

U.S. gasoline stocks fell 400,000 barrels, the EIA said, more than double the draw forecast, while refining utilization rates ticked up 4 percentage points.