Crude oil inventories in the United States fell again this week, this time by 4.495 million barrels for the week ending July 26, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API), after analysts predicted a smaller 2.333 million barrel draw.
For the week prior, the API reported a 3.9 million barrel draw in crude inventories.
This week marks the fifth week in a row of API-estimated inventory draws for crude oil, for a total loss of 24 million barrels during that time.
On Monday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 0.7 million barrels as of July 26. Inventories are now at 375.1 million barrels.
Oil prices continued their downward trend on Tuesday ahead of the API data release on Tuesday. At 03:30 pm ET, Brent crude was trading down $0.92 (-1.15%) on the day at $78.86-down nearly $3 per barrel from this time last week. The U.S. benchmark WTI was also trading down on the day by $0.78 (-1.03%) at $75.03-down roughly $2.30 per barrel from this time last week.
Gasoline inventories also fell this week, by 1.917 million barrels, adding onto last week's 2.8-million-barrel decrease. As of last week, gasoline inventories are 2% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories shrunk this week by 322,000 barrels, on top of last week's 1.5-million-barrel decrease. Distillates were about 9% below the five-year average for the week ending July 19, the latest EIA data shows.
Cushing inventories finished out this week's losses, losing 929,000 barrels, according to API data, on top of the 1.6-million-barrel drop in the previous week.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More