The light sweet crude oil contract for February closed up $1.16 cents to $91.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Wednesday after the weekly inventories report for the week ended December 14th showed that inventories dropped for a fifth consecutive week. Inventories dropped by 7.6 million barrels while analysts surveyed expected a decrease of 1.5 million barrels.

In news from China, the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association reported on Wednesday that the country’s crude oil output would reach 186 million tons in 2007, up 1.5 percent year over year. For the first 11 months, imported oil stood rose 14.8 percent as compared to 2006 to 147 million tons.