Oil Rises a Second Day as U.S. Stocks Advance, Stockpiles Fall

Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Oil rose for a second day as stocks climbed and an industry-funded report showed a decline in crude inventories in the U.S., the world’s biggest energy consumer.

Oil surged as much as 5.3 percent yesterday as U.S. and European equities rose following better-than-estimated earnings at Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp. and an increase in German investor confidence. Prices extended gains in electronic trading after the American Petroleum Institute reported that stockpiles of crude declined by 6.13 million barrels last week.

“The fact that equities managed to claw back some ground was a positive for oil,” said Toby Hassall, a research analyst at Commodity Warrants Australia Pty in Sydney. The API numbers “are reasonably supportive to prices.”

Crude oil for September delivery gained $1.06, or 1.5 percent, to $70.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 8:19 a.m. Sydney time. Yesterday, it increased $2.44, or 3.7 percent, to settle at $69.19.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose to 989.67 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 0.9 percent to 9,217.94. The dollar traded at $1.4132 per euro at 6:02 a.m. in Tokyo, after falling 0.4 percent yesterday.

U.S. crude inventories dropped to 342.4 million barrels and gasoline supplies declined 847,000 barrels to 212.6 million, the API report showed. The Energy Department is scheduled to release its weekly report today at 10:30 a.m. in Washington.

Brent crude oil for October settlement rose $1.83, or 2.6 percent, to end yesterday’s session at $72.37 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe Exchange.