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Crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 4.339 million barrels for the week ending September 20, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API). Analysts had expected a drop, but a much smaller one at -1.1-million-barrels.
For the week prior, the API reported a 1.96-million-barrel increase in crude inventories.
So far this year, crude oil inventories are 15 million barrels under where they were at the start of the year, according to API data.
On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 1.3 million barrels as of Sept 20. Inventories are now at 381.9 million barrels. The SPR is now up roughly 35 million from its multi-decade low last summer, although still down 253 million from when President Biden took office.
Oil prices rose on Wednesday ahead of the API data release after an announcement from China that it would employ a monetary stimulus to kick its economy into gear. Other catalysts helping to push prices up are the threat of supply disruptions in the United States as a result of the hurricane and continued fear over Middle Eastern tensions.
At 3:15 pm ET, Brent crude was trading up $1.30 (+1.76%) on the day at $75.20—up roughly $1.60 from this time last week. The U.S. benchmark WTI was also trading up on the day by $1.24 (+1.76%) at $71.61—up nearly $0.50 per barrel from last Tuesday.
Gasoline inventories also fell by a substantial amount this week, falling 3.438 million barrels, more than offsetting last week’s 2.34-million-barrel increase. As of last week, gasoline inventories are just below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories fell by 1.115 million barrels, compared to last week’s 2.3-million-barrel increase. Distillates were about 9% below the five-year average for the week ending September 13, the latest EIA data shows.
Cushing inventories also were down, shrinking by 26,000 barrels, according to API data, on top of the 1.4-million-barrel draw of the previous week.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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