Shares of oil refiners registered a fall on Wednesday as investors jittered that the companies had boosted their fuel production by a great extent, exceeding demand.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery slipped, landing at 96 cents, or 1.1%, lower at $85.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. However, the slip is witnessed to be a positive signal for refiners.

The U. S. Energy Information Administration posted its combined oil and refined product stockpiles to climb to their highest level since mid-January.

Demand in the four weeks ended April 2 was revealed to be up by 1.9% compared to a year earlier; however, analysts reveal that inventories may still be too high.

The agency registered a 2 million-barrel rise in oil inventories for the week ended April 2, above the 1.3 million-barrel addition estimated by analysts in a Dow Jones Newswires survey.

However, gasoline inventories posted a squeeze by 2.5 million barrels, more than double their forecast of a 1 million-barrel draw.

"We're still seeing lackluster consumption numbers", quoted, Tim Evans, an analyst with Citi Futures Perspective.