While they had started on a rebound, oil prices ended down for the fifth session in a row on Wednesday after the data on crude inventories in the United States published by the EIA.

The prices of the two reference contracts on both sides of the Atlantic seemed to be on track to end a series of four consecutive sessions of decline. But they wavered when the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) published the state of commercial crude oil reserves at 2:30 p.m. GMT. A barrel of Brent North Sea oil for October delivery fell 1.15% or 80 cents to $68.23 in London from Tuesday's close. In New York, the American barrel of WTI for the month of September concluded at 65.46 dollars, down 1.69% or 1.13 dollars. These reserves, however, fell by 3.2 million barrels last week, well beyond analysts' expectations, according to the agency's weekly report. But gasoline stocks rose by 700,000 barrels, despite the movements of the summer, a bad signal for the strength of demand from the first consumer of black gold.