The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a build of 933,000 barrels of United States crude oil inventories for the week ending February 23, according to the API data. Analysts had expected a larger build of 2.077 million barrels in crude oil inventories.
Last week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a small draw of 907,000 barrels of crude oil, which this week more than offsets. Last week's API report showed a build in gasoline inventories of 1.468 million barrels.
This week, the API reporting build for both crude oil and gasoline. The API reported a build of 1.914 million in gasoline stockpiles, compared to a 190,000-barrel draw that analysts had expected.
The WTI and Brent benchmarks were both down on Tuesday with WTI trading down $0.76 (-1.19%) at $63.15, while Brent trading down $0.66 (-0.98%) at $66.63 at 1:55pm EST. Despite the drop in prices today, both benchmarks are trading up from this same time last week.
While crude oil inventories built for the week, US crude oil production for week ending February 16 was largely unchanged this week, coming in at 10.270 million bpd, down just a hair from last week's 10.271 million bpd.
Distillate inventories saw a draw this week of 1.437 million barrels. Analysts had forecast a smaller decline of 709,000 barrels.
Inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma, site decreased by 1.277 million barrels this week.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration report on oil inventories is due to be released on Wednesday at 10:30am. EST, resuming its normal schedule after the holiday week.
By 4:40pm EST, the WTI benchmark was trading down even more at 1.49% on the day to $62.96 while Brent was trading down 1.29% on the day at $66.42. Gasoline was trading down 1.49%.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Comments
And without fail the announcement came this time from the API reporting a build of 933,000 barrels of United States crude oil inventories and 1.468 mbd of gasoline inventories for the week ending February 23.
It has become apparent to everybody for a long time that there is such an uncanny correlation between oil prices trending downwards and announcements by the EIA or the API of rises in US oil inventories or increases of US oil production to be coincidental.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London