Crude Oil Inventory Build Follows Announcement Of SPR Release

The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported an inventory build in crude oil.

This week, the API estimated the inventory build for crude oil to be 2.307 million barrels.

U.S. crude inventories are now 57 million barrels below where they were at the beginning of the year.

Analyst expectations for the week were for a draw of 950,000 barrels for the week.

In the previous week, the API reported a build in oil inventories of 655,000 barrels, compared to the 1.550-million-barrel build that analysts had predicted.

Oil prices had been trading up on Tuesday in the run-up to the data release, even after the White House announced that it would release 50 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR to tackle high gasoline prices.

But with WTI rising to $78.85 and Brent trading at $82.43 per barrel.  WTI was down more than $2 week on week at 1:52 p.m. EST, while Brent was essentially flat for the week.  

U.S. oil production for the week ending November 12—the last week for which the Energy Information Administration has provided data—slipped back to 11.4 million bpd—1.7 million bpd below the all-time pre-pandemic high of 13.1 million bpd.

The API reported a build in gasoline inventories of 600,000 barrels for the week ending November 19—after the previous week's 2.792-million-barrel draw, as high gasoline prices in the United States continue to draw attention.

Distillate stocks saw a decrease in inventories of 1.5 million barrels for the week, after week's 107,000-barrel increase.

WTI was trading up 2.36% at 4:53 p.m. at $78.56 per barrel.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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