Oil prices plunge

New York: Oil prices dived on Wednesday as a government report showed that the US crude production increased last week.

US crude production added 19,000 barrels to 9.136 million barrels a day last week, according to the weekly report issued by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday, Xinhua reported.

US crude supplies of last week dropped 1.9 million barrels to 454 million barrels, 96 million barrels more than one year before.

Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the US contract, lost 0.5 million barrels to 54 million barrels.

EIA projected in an early report that US crude oil production averages 9.2 million barrels per day in 2015 but fall to 8.8 million barrels per day in 2016.

The West Texas Intermediate for November delivery moved down $1.88 to settle at $44.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for November delivery decreased $1.33 to close at $47.75 a barrel on the London ICE Future Exchange.

IANS