* EIA: total inventories up despite crude drawdown
* Jobs, trade data take backseat to high supplies
* Coming up: IEA monthly oil market report, Friday
(Recasts, updates with settlement prices, details)
By Gene Ramos
NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Oil prices ended lower on
Thursday as total U.S. crude and product stockpiles rose to
another 20-year high, prompting investors to sell on risk
aversion.
The selling took hold despite government data showing a
drawdown in crude inventories last week which surprised most
analysts.
U.S. crude futures shot up to a three-week high on news of
the drawdown, but gains eroded as traders raised more worries
about oil demand with the summer driving season, lackluster for
gasoline as it turned out, now over.
Along with oil, most major commodities also dropped, on
stop-loss selling after hitting recent highs, traders said.
Oil drew support earlier in the session from reports
showing U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell more than
expected last week to a two-month low, while the trade deficit
narrowed sharply in July, easing some economic concerns.
[]
U.S. crude for October delivery <CLc1> settled down 42
cents at $74.265 a barrel, after hitting a session high of
$75.96, its highest since Aug. 18.
ICE October Brent <LCOc1> crude fell 70 cents to end at
$77.47.
U.S. crude inventories fell 1.9 million barrels last week,
the Energy Information Administration said, much less than the
7.3 million drop shown in industry data on Wednesday and well
off the average forecast of a 900,000-barrel increase from
analysts polled by Reuters. []
The EIA data also showed small declines in distillate and
gasoline stocks and a dip in supplies stored at the Cushing,
Oklahoma, delivery hub in the week to Sept. 3.
Separately, data from industry data provider Genscape
showed that oil inventories at the hub fell by 330,495 barrels
to 37.6 million barrels in the week to Sept. 7.
[]
But overall, total U.S. commercial stockpiles rose
slightly last week by 200,000 barrels to hit a new 20-year high
just above 1.143 billion barrels, the highest level since the
EIA began issuing weekly reports in 1990.
"The EIA drawdowns, despite being across-the-board, were
minimal and so, overall, I view the latest data as neutral,"
said Mark Waggoner, president of Excel Futures in Bend,
Oregon.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
trimmed its forecast demand for the group's crude this year and
next, denting investors' confidence that prices would move much
above the recent range of $71-$75 a barrel. []
Oil investors, as with their counterparts in other
commodities markets, have had to deal with worries about a
slowing recovery pace in the United States, the world's biggest
fuel consumer.
Those worries further swelled as the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development, in its latest
assessment, said the global economy was slowing more than
expected and that monetary stimulus should be extended or
stepped up if the slowdown persisted.
The oil market has spent much of the year in lockstep with
equities and negatively correlated to the U.S. dollar.
On Thursday, however, oil moved in a different direction as
Wall Street was lifted by the day's jobless clams and trade gap
data. []
The U.S. dollar was up slightly against a basket of
currencies <.DXY>, helped by the latest U.S. economic data.
(Additional reporting by Robert Gibbons in New York;
Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Alex Lawler in London; Alejandro
Barbajosa in Singapore; editing by Jim Marshall)
