The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday announced that crude oil inventories increased by 4.174 million barrels for the week ending November 13th.
Analysts expected a stock build of 1.95 million barrels.
In the previous week, the American Petroleum Institute announced a significant drawdown of oil inventories by 5.147 million barrels, after analysts had expected a withdrawal of 913,000 barrels for the week.
Oil prices were trading lower on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the release of API data despite important vaccine news, as OPEC + indicated that it may extend existing production cuts for an additional three months. Pressures include the widespread lockdown, weaker-than-expected economic data in the United States, and an increase in oil production in Libya.
In the run-up to the release of data on Tuesday, at 11:53 AM ET, WTI fell $ 0.48 (-1.16%) to $ 40.86, down roughly $ 0.50 a barrel over the course of the week. The benchmark Brent crude oil index fell $ 0.61 at the time (-1.39%) to $ 43.21 – down around $ 0.40 a barrel over the course of the week.
However, oil prices rose later in the afternoon.
US oil production was unchanged in the last reporting week, at 10.5 million According to the Energy Information Administration, production is 2.6 million barrels per day below an all-time high of 13.1 million barrels per day in March.
The American Petroleum Institute reported an increase in gasoline inventories of 256,000 barrels of gasoline for the week ending November 13 – compared to the previous week’s draw of 3.297 million barrels. Analysts predicted a 450 thousand barrels Building for the week.
Distillate stocks fell by 5.024 million barrels during the week, compared to last week’s withdrawal of 5.619 million barrels, while Cushing inventories rose by 176,000 barrels.
At 4:39 PM EST, the WTI was trading at $ 41.45 while Brent crude was trading at $ 43.87.
Written by Julian Geiger for Oilprice.com
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