Crude oil stocks are falling again

U.S. crude oil inventories fell another 2.79 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 6, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API). Analysts expected a construction of 700,000 barrels.

For the previous week, the API reported a 7.4 million barrel drop in crude oil inventories.

So far this year, crude oil inventories are more than 12 million barrels below where they were at the start of the year, according to API data.

On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) increased by another 0.3 million barrels as of September 6. Inventories are now at 380 million barrels. The SPR is now up 33 million from its multi-decade low last summer, though still down 255 million from when President Biden took office.

Oil prices continued to fall on Wednesday ahead of the release of API data. At 3:50 pm ET, Brent crude was trading up another $2.31 (-3.22%) on the day at $69.53 — a trim of nearly $3 from this time last week. US benchmark WTI also traded down $2.58 (-3.75%) at $66.13, down nearly $3 a barrel from last Tuesday.

Gasoline inventories also fell this week by 513,000 barrels, on top of a 300,000-barrel drop last week. As of last week, gasoline inventories are 2 percent below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.

Distillate stockpiles rose 191,000 barrels, partially offsetting a 400,000-barrel drop last week. Distillates were already about 10 percent below their five-year average for the week ended Aug. 30, the latest EIA data showed.

Cushing inventories saw another big draw, with a loss of 2.6 million barrels, according to API data, compared with a draw of 800,000 barrels the previous week.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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