Crude oil was little changed in New York after declining last week as higher stockpiles eased concerns that refiners can meet gasoline supply during the peak summer driving season.

Crude oil inventories have risen to a 17-week high after refinery maintenance and shutdowns cut demand. Valero Energy Corp. restarted two units at its fire-damaged McKee plant in Texas, according to an April 13 report.

“It’s mid-April now so demand is going to rise pretty steeply,” said Tobin Gorey, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. in Sydney. “But that’s a gasoline issue rather than a crude supply issue” and there’s no sign the violence in Nigeria will reduce oil exports, he said.

Crude oil for May delivery was at $63.74 a barrel, up 11 cents, in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 11:30 a.m. in Singapore.

The contract, which expires at the end of the week, fell 22 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $63.63 on April 13, a 1 percent decline for the week. The more widely-held June contract was up 2 cents at $66.35 a barrel today.

At least 21 people were killed during state assembly elections in Nigeria, a week before a presidential vote on April 21. The African country was the fifth-largest exporter of oil to the U.S. last year.

“I still see some upward pressure on prices” which may peak next month, said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover Inc., a New Canaan, Connecticut, energy consultant. “As the refineries start to come back we will see much greater interest to buy crude to process.”

Refinery Increase

U.S. refiners used 88.4 percent of the plant capacity in the week ended April 6, a three-month high and a 1.4 percentage point increase from a week earlier.

Gasoline for May delivery was at $2.1691 a gallon in after- hours trading after falling 0.6 percent to $2.1797 on April 13, the first decline in four days.

The discount between the May and June oil contracts widened to a three-week high last week as stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, where the benchmark West Texas Intermediate grade oil is delivered, rose to a record. Rising gasoline consumption also pushed gasoline and later-dated oil contracts higher.

U.S. gasoline demand averaged 9.4 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended April 6, or 2.5 percent more than a year earlier, the Energy Department said last week.

Exxon, Shell

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest oil company, on April 13 reported a malfunction in a line connecting two units at its refinery in Beaumont, Texas. Motiva Enterprises LLC, the refining joint venture between Europe’s Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, on April 13 reported a malfunction at its plant in Port Arthur, Texas, that required emergency flaring.

“There’s strong oil products demand in the U.S.,” said Kaname Gokon, deputy manager of the research section at futures broker Okato Shoji Co. in Tokyo. “There’s been trouble with refineries in the U.S. and that will support prices.”

Gasoline deliveries by U.S. refiners usually peak between June and August. High demand coincides with the North Atlantic hurricane season which runs from June 1 through November.

Oil traded above $65 a barrel from April through August last year and reached a record $78.40 in July. Prices surged a year earlier when a record 27 storms formed in the North Atlantic, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita which slashed oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and did $17 billion of damage to U.S. pipelines, rigs and refineries.

September is usually the busiest month for tropical storms, historically accounting for about 37 percent of all the hurricanes striking land in the U.S., according to National Hurricane Center data.

Oil for September delivery was at $69.15 a barrel, down 17 cents, in after-hours trading.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gavin Evans in Wellington at gavinevans@bloomberg.net Hector Forster in Tokyo at hforster@bloomberg.net .

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