Investing.com - Oil prices were in retreat Thursday, extending losses from the previous session, when data showed U.S. crude inventories rose unexpectedly last week.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures declined 78 cents, or around 1.3%, to $58.64 a barrel by 8:00AM ET (12:00 GMT).
Elsewhere, Brent oil slumped 71 cents, or about 1.1%, to $66.56 a barrel.
The Energy Information Administration said in its regular weekly report on Wednesday that crude oil inventories grew by 2.8 million barrels in the week to March 22. That was compared to forecasts for a stockpile draw of 1.1 million barrels.
The data disappointed oil bulls counting on a third-straight week of draws after a total inventory slide of nearly 14 million barrels in the two previous weeks.
Concerns over the outlook for the global economy also weighed on appetite for growth-linked assets.
Plummeting Venezuelan output due to U.S. sanctions and power cuts also provided support. Ellen Wald, president of Transversal Consulting, noted that power outages have taken offline some 700,000 bpd of "upgrading" capacity - the machinery used to turn the country's very heavy blend of oil into something internationally tradeable. She also noted that export volumes from Kazakhstan appear to have dropped, possibly due to maintenance at its giant Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures tumbled 2% to $1.836 a gallon, while heating oil fell 1.2% to $1.958 a gallon.
Natural gas futures tacked on 0.5% to $2.734 per million British thermal units, as traders looked ahead to weekly storage data due later in the global day amid expectations for a withdrawal of 40 billion cubic feet.
-- Reuters contributed to this report