Crude oil prices rose today after the Energy Information Administration reported a crude oil inventory decline of 3.1 million barrels for the week to December 11. The report came out a day after the American Petroleum Institute estimated inventory builds across crude and fuels, pressuring prices just as they had started to improve again. Analysts had expected the EIA to report a 3.5-million-barrel decline in crude oil inventories for the week to December 11, after it estimated a huge build of over 15 million barrels for the previous week. In gasoline, the authority reported an inventory build of 1 million barrels for last week, which compared with a hefty increase of 4.2 million barrels for the previous week, following another increase, of 3.5 million bpd for the week before that. Gasoline production last week averaged 8.5 million bpd, which compared with 8.3 million bpd a week earlier. In middle […]