Gas supplies up, oil prices drop Wednesday

NEW YORK, July 23 (UPI) -- The price of crude oil fell more than $4 to $124.20 a barrel Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

With Hurricane Dolly fading as a threat to Gulf of Mexico supply lines, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said U.S. gasoline inventories rose by 2.8 million barrels in the week ending July 18. The figure was well above the 200,000 barrel increase that industry analysts had forecast, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Natural gas was also down in late trading, off 0.65 cents to $9.723 per million British thermal units.

Heating oil was down 0.0067 cents at $3.5434 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline was selling for $3.023 per gallon, off 0.0114 cents.

The AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report indicated the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline at the pump was $4.042 Wednesday, down from an average $4.055 reported on Tuesday.