Crude oil prices were set to rise following the Energy Information Administrations’ latest weekly petroleum status report as the authority reported a draw in crude oil inventories, of 2.6 million barrels for the week to August 24, after a day earlier, the America Petroleum Institute had estimated that inventories had risen by 38,000 barrels.
Analysts had forecast a sizeable draw of 1.5 million barrels in crude oil inventories. A week earlier, the EIA reported an inventory draw of 5.8 million barrels.
In gasoline, the authority reported a draw of 1.6 million barrels in inventories—about 5 percent over the five-year average for this time of year. Average daily gasoline production stood at 10.2 million barrels. That compares with an inventory build of 1.2 million barrels and a daily production at 10.2 million barrels in the week before.
In distillates, the EIA reported the only build for the week, at 800,000. Daily distillates production was 5.2 million barrels. This compares with a 1.8-million-barrel inventory increase a week earlier and daily production of 5.4 million barrels. Distillates inventories are now 8 percent below the five-year average for this time of year.
Leading up to the data release, the WTI and Brent crude benchmarks were trading up as the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran’s crude oil and condensate loadings for August were set to drop to 1-year lows as we get closer to the onset of new sanctions levied by the United States. The price rise due to falling oil supplies was tempered by yesterday’s API report, which estimated that crude oil, gasoline, distillates, and inventory held at Cushing, Oklahoma, had all ticked upwards.
At 9:24am EDT, WTI was trading up $0.63 (+0.92%) at $69.16, while Brent was trading up $0.55 (+0.72%) at $76.84.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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