Crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 3.9 million barrels during the week ending July 11, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The build brings commercial stockpiles to 422.2 million barrels according to government data, which is still 8% below the five-year average for this time of year.
The EIA’s data release follows a rocky Tuesday after conflicting API inventory data shook oil bulls to their core, with initial reports on X suggesting that crude oil inventories had grown by 19.1 million bpd—a figure that would have been the largest recorded inventory build in API’s history. With the markets still reeling, a different, more sober figure surfaced that showed an 800,000 barrel build in crude inventories.
Crude prices were trading sharply down ahead of the report on market uneasiness. At 9:58 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $68.04 per barrel—down 0.98% on the day and down roughly $1.80 per barrel from last week’s levels. Meanwhile, WTI was at $65.74 per barrel, losing 0.1.17% for the day.
For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported an increase of 3.4 million barrels, even with daily production falling to 9.1 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories rose by 4.2 million barrels, with production slightly decreasing to 5 million barrels daily. Despite the inventory build, distillate inventories are still 21% below the five-year average for this time of year.
Total products supplied over the last four weeks fell to 20.3 million barrels per day, down 1.1% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 9 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied was 3.7 million barrels—up 4.4 percent year over year.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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