Oil futures ended with a loss on Wednesday, pulling back after posting gains in each of the last three trading sessions. The Energy Information Administration on Wednesday reported a 400,000-barrel weekly fall in U.S. crude supplies, even as 5 million barrels of oil supplies were released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Still, with crude oil having come off of three strong days, Wednesday’s actions “feels like a normal and common consolidation of recent gains,” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management. On its expiration day, August West Texas Intermediate crude fell $1.96, or 1.9%, to finish at $102.26 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The new front-month contract, September WTI crude , settled at $99.88, down 86 cents, or nearly 0.9%. Meanwhile, natural-gas futures climbed by more than 10% as hot weather in much of the U.S. buoyed prospects for cooling demand. August natural gas rose 74 cents, or 10.2%, to settle at $8.007 per million British thermal units, the highest finish since June 13, FactSet data show.
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