The U.S. trade gap soared to a new record during November as demand for foreign oil climbed while sales of U.S. goods and services overseas fell for the first time in five months.

The U.S. Commerce Department said today that the U.S. deficit in international trade of goods and services grew 7.7% to US$60.3 billion from an upwardly revised US$56.00 billion in October.

Economists had forecast the deficit would narrow to US$53.60 billion.

Energy prices continued to increase the value of U.S. imports during the month. The average price of a barrel of crude fell to US$41.15 in November from US$41.79 in October, but the volume of crude oil imports increased to 326.48 million barrels for the month from 315.81 million. That pushed the value of imported crude to $13.43 billion from $13.20 billion.

Imports overall increased 1.3% toUS $155.85 billion during November, Commerce said.

U.S. exports, which had been rising for much of the year, suffered a setback in November, falling 2.3% to US$66.5 billion. It was the first decline in five months and reflected a drop in shipments of U.S. autos and auto parts, civilian aircraft, telecommunications equipment and industrial machinery.

Deficits with major U.S. trading partners were mixed in November. The shortfall with China decreased to US$16.63 billion from US$16.78 billion, but the deficit with Japan expanded to US$7.29 billion from US$5.86 billion. The shortfall with the euro area increased to US$7.72 billion from US$7.08 billion. The deficit with Canada widened to US$7.30 billion from US$5.72 billion while the gap with Mexico fell to US$3.89 billion from US$4.41 billion.