The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported its fourth straight week of crude oil inventory builds. The week, according to the API, the build was 3.294 million barrels-strong.
U.S. crude inventories are still 63 million barrels below where they were at the beginning of the year.
Analyst expectations for the week were for a build of 2.233-million barrels for the week.
In the previous week, the API reported a surprise build in oil inventories of 5.213-million barrels, compared to the 140,000 barrel build that analysts had predicted.
Oil prices were trading up on Tuesday in the runup to the data release, with WTI reaching near $83 and Brent reaching almost $85 per barrel. Both WTI and Brent were up .52% and .76%, respectively, at 3:30 p.m. EST.
At 3:35 p.m. EST, WTI was trading at $82.87-a more than $2 gain on the week. Brent crude was trading at $84.97.
Oil inventories in the United States have drawn down nearly 63 million barrels so far this year, according to API data, and 6 million barrels since the start of 2020.
U.S. oil production for the week ending October 8-the last week for which there is data-rose 100,000 bpd to 11.4 million bpd and is now essentially recovered from the devastating effects of Hurricane Ida.
The API reported a draw in gasoline inventories of 3.5 million barrels for the week ending October 15-compared to the previous week's 4.575-million-barrel draw.
Distillate stocks saw a decrease in inventories of 3.0 barrels for the week, compared to last week's 2.707-barrel decrease.
Cushing inventories also saw a draw this week, of 2.5 million barrels, on top of last week's 2.275-million-barrel decrease.
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