The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United rose by 3.34 million barrels for the week ending February 14. Analysts had expected a 2.2-million-barrel build.
This adds to the almost 18 million barrels of builds in U.S. crude oil inventories during the last four weeks, including a 9 million barrel build in the week prior.
Earlier this week, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 0.2 million barrels as of February 14. Inventory levels in the SPR are still hundreds of millions shy of the levels in inventory prior to the SPR withdrawal that took place under the Biden Administration.
At 3:04 pm ET, Brent crude was trading up $0.21 (+0.28%) on the day at $76.05—a $0.90 per barrel dip from this time last week. The U.S. benchmark WTI was trading up on the day by $0.39 (+0.54%) at $72.24—a roughly $1 per barrel decrease from last week’s level.
Gasoline inventories rose in the week ending February 7 by 2.83 million barrels, offsetting the previous week’s 2.507-million-barrel decrease. As of last week, gasoline inventories are now 1% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories saw another week of decline, dropping 2.69 million barrels in the latest week. In the week prior, distillate inventories fell 590,000 barrels. Distillate inventories were already about 11% below the five-year average as of the week ending February 7, the latest EIA data shows.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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