Light, sweet crude-oil futures for delivery in February
climbed 33 cents, or 0.4%, to $93.61 a barrel in electronic trading,
after figures released by the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday
in the U.S. showed stockpiles increased by just 46,000 barrels in the
week ended Jan. 11.
Analysts surveyed by Platts had anticipated an increase of 2.5 million barrels.
The more closely-watched weekly inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration is due later on Wednesday.