Updated at: 0155 PST, Thursday, January 15, 2009 COLUMBUS: Oil prices fell Wednesday with a government report showing that U.S. crude inventories continued to grow, suggesting that demand for oil and gasoline will not rebound anytime soon. Light, sweet crude for February delivery fell 50 cents to settle at $37.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after trading as high as $39.45. Prices have fallen from as high as $50.47 just last week with evidence growing that a weakened global economy has eaten away at energy demand. The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said crude inventories grew by 1.2 million barrels for the week ended Friday. That was below the expectation of 3 million barrels, according to the average of estimates in a survey of analysts by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. Yet the department said in last week's report that oil stocks jumped 6.7 million barrels the previous week, meaning less and less crude is being used. Gasoline inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels, 300,000 barrels ahead of analyst estimates, and distillates increased by 6.4 million barrels compared with the estimate of a gain of 1.7 million distillates. Crude appears to be headed back to the levels it reached nearly a month ago when it fell to $33.87 a barrel, the lowest mark since2004.
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