Oil prices rose to a new record high on Wednesday as OPEC said it won’t boost production and U.S. crude supplies showed a surprise drop.

The price of light, sweet crude for April delivery hit a peak of US$104.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It later gave back a bit of its gain to trade up US$4.26 on the day at US$103.78.

According to weekly supply data released by the U.S. Energy Department, U.S. crude stockpiles fell by 3.1 million barrels to 305.4 million barrels for the week ending Feb. 29. Market analysts had been expecting a rise of 2.1 million barrels.

Earlier in the day, the members of OPEC declined to raise or lower its production.

On Monday, oil touched an inflation-adjusted high price of US$103.85 a barrel.