Oil recovers, price rises by $ 3

Oil surged $3.36 to $104.58 Wednesday morning after the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that weekly crude oil inventories remained unchanged and gasoline supplies declined.

Crude oil inventories were unchanged in the latest week, at 311.8 million, the EIA said. Gasoline inventories declined 3.3 million barrels. Distillate stocks fell 2.2 million barrels.

Historically, oil inventories increase as the spring quarter approaches; spring is the lowest oil use quarter in the United States.

Heating oil surged about eight cents to $3.01 per gallon, unleaded gasoline added three cents to $2.719 per gallon, and natural gas rose about 10 cents to $9.52 per million BTUs.

Also, refineries operated at 82.2% of their operable capacity last week, down from 83.8% a week earlier. Historically, refinery capacity declines in the initial spring weeks, as refiners perform maintenance and convert systems to gasoline production from heating oil production.