By Alan Fein

(AXcess News) New York - Thursday morning the price of west texas crude oil rose more than 1.3% to top $78 per barrel despite a spike in U.S. stocks as reported Wednesday morning by the EIA.

Government data showed that crude oil stocks in the U.S. rose 7.3 million barrels in the week ending July 23, 2010 to 360.8 million barrels, 12.9 million barrels higher than the same period last year.  Gasoline stocks during the same week climbed 100,000 barrels to 222.2 million barrels, which is up 9.2 million barrels over year-ago levels.

West Texas crude oil roe $1.03 per barrel this morning, or 1.34%, to $78.02.  While in London, Brent crude oil on the ICE Exchange traded up $1.52 a barrel, or 2%, at $77.58.

Gasoline futures in New York rose 3.6 cents a gallon, or 1.77%, to $2.10 a gallon.

Meanwhile, AAA reports that the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline at the pump this morning was $2.74 a gallon, compared to $2.71 a week ago.  Last year, the average price at the pump was $2.51 a gallon.

In other energy news, major oil and gas production companies weighed in this morning with second quarter results.  XOM more than doubled second quarter profits for the period while RDS-B saw a 15% gain and BP reported a new record loss of $17 billion for the same period due to the Gulf oil spill.