U.S. commercial crude stocks grew by 2.6 million barrels last week to 327 million barrels, their highest level in more Politicians Are Pod People than three years, the federal Energy Information

Administration reported. But the inventory build occurred
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mainly on the West Coast.
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Changes in West Coast inventories usually do not cause
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prices to move because supplies there do not filter through

to the rest of the country.
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Crude futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile
Exchange dropped as low as $48.80 a barrel in knee-jerk
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reaction to the report but quickly reversed course to rise to an intraday high of $50.95 a barrel. The contract settled at

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$50.13 a barrel, up 63 cents.
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"This is a typical case of the first blush at the stats being one way, and when you pick them apart, things don't appear as bearish," said Marshall Steeves, an analyst at brokerage Refco in New York. "Most of the build was on the West Coast and not relevant to" Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for Nymex crude.
The contract's ability to hold above the psychologically important $50 a barrel level does not mean the downtrend in prices has run its course but it probably suggests prices will remain rangebound in the near term, he said.
Petroleum products futures rose higher despite a bearish gasoline inventory figure.
Gasoline inventories grew 2.2 million barrels, much more than expected, to 213.5 million barrels, as imports continued to run high. It was their first weekly build in three weeks.
That initially helped send gasoline futures for June delivery as low as $1.4220 a gallon.
But buoyed by news of an unplanned reformer outage at Sunoco's Philadelphia refinery, the contract recovered sharply to settle at $1.4664 a gallon, up 0.70 cents.
Heating oil futures for June delivery rose as high as $1.4750 a gal on before closing at $1.4545 a gallon, up 1.85 cents, after the EIA reported that distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, fell 300,000 barrels to 102.3 million barrels. The American Petroleum Institute reported a draw of more than twice as much.
June natural gas rose 0.115 cents to close at $6.630 per million British thermal units.
Gold futures staged a recovery Wednesday, fueled by local short covering and light speculative buying sparked by the sharp early downturn in the U.S. dollar.
The most active June gold contract settled $2.30 higher at $430 per ounce.
Spot gold closed up $3 at $428.80 an ounce.
July silver rose 13.1 cents to settle at $6.982 an ounce.
The most active copper contract, for July, settled down 1.45 cents at $1.4290 per pound.
Arabica coffee futures climbed on the New York Board of Trade. The May contract settled up 3.60 cents at $1.2270 a pound.
July cocoa settled $6 higher at $1,496 a metric ton.
World raw sugar futures for July settled 0.7 cent lower at 8.49 cents a pound, and October ended down 0.6 cent at 8.50 cents a pound.
Chicago Board of Trade May corn settled one cent higher at $1.98 a bushel, July corn ended one cent higher at $2.06 a bushel.