Crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 1.96 million barrels for the week ending September 13, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API). Analysts had expected a 100,000-barrel drop.
For the week prior, the API reported a 2.79-million-barrel decrease in crude inventories.
So far this year, crude oil inventories are 10.9 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 0.6 million barrels as of Sept 13. Inventories are now at 380.6 million barrels. The SPR is now up nearly 34 million from its multi-decade low last summer, although still down 254 million from when President Biden took office.
Oil prices rose on Wednesday ahead of the API data release. At 2:31 pm ET, Brent crude was trading up +$0.87 (1.20%) on the day at $73.62-up nearly $4 from this time last week. The U.S. benchmark WTI was also trading up on the day by $1.07 (+1.53%) at $71.16-up nearly $5 per barrel from last Tuesday as the market waits nervously for a decision from the Fed on interest rates.
Gasoline inventories rose this week, by 2.34 million barrels, more than offsetting last week's 513,000-barrel decrease. As of last week, gasoline inventories are 1% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories rose by 2.3 million barrels, adding onto last week's smaller 191,000-barrel increase. Distillates were already about 8% below the five-year average for the week ending September 6, the latest EIA data shows.
Cushing inventories saw yet another large draw, with a loss of 1.4 million barrels, according to API data, on top of the 2.6-million-barrel draw from the previous week.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More