West Texas Intermediate rose to its highest intraday level in seven weeks after an industry report showed U.S. distillate supplies shrank and a potential historic winter storm threatens to coat Georgia with ice. Futures gained as much as 0.8 percent in New York , where heavy snow is forecast. Distillate fuels, including heating oil and diesel, fell by 1.45 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said yesterday after the market settlement. Government data today will show a drop of 2.13 million barrels, according to a Bloomberg News survey. China , the second-biggest oil consumer, imported a record amount of crude for a second month in January, customs data showed. “We’ve had a strong winter in the U.S., especially in the north-east and this is why heating oil demand in the U.S. has increased,” said Frank Klumpp, an analyst at Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart, Germany . “Until we […]