The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a large draw of 5.25 million barrels in U.S. crude oil inventories, offsetting last week’s build of 1.174 million barrels.
Analysts were expecting a draw of 2.667 million barrels for the week. The total number of barrels of crude oil moved so far this year is now firmly in the red, according to API data, and there has been a net draw in crude oil inventories of more than 52 million barrels since April.
On Monday, the Department of Energy (DOE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 600,000 bbl last week, with SPR stockpiles remaining at a nearly four-decade low of 351.2 million bbl. The amount being purchased to put back into the SPR is a small portion of the hundreds of millions of barrels that have been sold out of the SPR in recent years.
Oil prices were trading higher on Tuesday ahead of the API data release, with Brent trading up 0.23% at $94.65 as of 4:11 p.m. ET – up $2.50 week-over-week, while WTI was trading up 0.15% at $91.62 per barrel – up more than $2.50 per barrel from this time last week.
Gasoline inventories saw the only increase this week, by 732,000 barrels, on top of the 4.21 million barrel build in the prior week. For this time of year, gasoline inventories are about 2% below the five-year average. Distillate inventories are 13% below the five-year average for this time of year as they fell 258,000 barrels, partially offsetting the 2.592 million barrel build in the prior week.
Inventories at Cushing fell by another large 2.564 million barrels, following a 2.417 million barrel draw last week, leaving just over 22 million barrels in storage at Cushing.