Oil futures pared early gains and settled lower on Wednesday after official data showed a smaller-than-expected drop in U.S. crude inventories in the week ended July 14th.
A stronger dollar weighed as well on crude oil prices.
West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended lower by $0.40 or about 0.5% at $75.35 a barrel, coming off the session's high of $76.97 a barrel.
Brent crude futures were down $0.12 or 0.16% at $79.51 a barrel a little while ago.
Data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) this morning showed U.S. crude inventories dropped by $0.708 million barrels last week, as against forecast for a drop of about 2.44 million barrels.
Gasoline stockpiles fell by 1.066 million barrels last week, less than an expected decline of 1.577 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles rose by 0.014 million barrels, smaller than the forecast for a 0.460 million barrels drop.
A report released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday had showed crude oil inventories declined by 0.80 million barrels last week, lower than an expected fall of 2.25 million barrels.
