U.S. crude oil, product stocks post series of clean pullbacks

U.S. crude oil inventories fell by 3.4 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 23, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API), after analysts had predicted a 3 million barrel decline.

For the previous week, the API reported a 347,000-barrel increase in crude oil inventories.

So far this year, crude inventories are more than 2 million barrels below year-to-date levels, down 2.642 million barrels, according to API data.

On Monday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) increased by another 0.7 million barrels as of August 23. Inventories are now at 377.90 million barrels.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday ahead of the release of API data. At 4:24 PM ET, Brent crude was trading down $1.76 (-2.16%) on the day at $79.67. While the day was down, it was up about $1.40 a barrel from this time last week. Also, US benchmark WTI traded down $1.71 (-2.21%) on the day at $75.71, up about $0.70 a barrel from this time last week.

Gasoline inventories fell this week by 1.86 million barrels, on top of last week’s drop of 1.043 million barrels. Analysts had predicted a draw of less than 1.6 million barrels. As of last week, gasoline inventories are 3 percent below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.

Distillate inventories also fell this week by 1.4 million barrels, on top of last week’s drop of 2.247 million barrels. Analysts had forecast a drop of 1.1 million barrels. Distillates were about 10 percent below the five-year average for the week ended Aug. 16, the latest EIA data showed.

Cushing inventories ended draws with a loss of 486,000 barrels, according to API data, compared with a draw of 648,000 barrels the previous week.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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