oil futures extended gains wednesday after the energy information administration said us crude inventories fell by 47 million barrels in the week ended dec 17 analysts surveyed by sp global platts had on average looked for crude stocks to fall by 39 million barrels while sources said the american petroleum institute late tuesday showed a 367 million barrel decline west texas intermediate crude for february delivery initially pared its gain then pushed to a new session high and remained up 60 cents or 08 at 7172 a barrel compared with around 7150 ahead of the figures gasoline supplies rose by a much largerthanexpected 55 million barrels compared with analyst expectations for a rise of 600000 barrels and api data that showed an increase of 37 million barrels the eia said distillate stocks rose by 400000 barrels analysts had looked for a decline of 16 million barrels while api data was said to show a fall of 849000 barrels