Crude oil prices continued to move lower despite the Energy Information Administration report that inventories had shed 2.2 million barrels in the week to September 29.
This compared with a draw of the same size estimated for the previous week by the EIA.
A day earlier, the American Petroleum Institute reported an estimated inventory decline of 4.2 million barrels for the last week of September.
In fuels, meanwhile, the EIA reported mixed inventory changes, but it was a build in gasoline and fears of weakening gasoline demand that traders paid attention to.
Gasoline inventories added a substantial 6.5 million barrels for the week to September 29, which compared with a build of 1 million barrels for the previous week. Gasoline inventories are now 1% above the five-year average for this time of year. Gasoline prices fell alongside oil prices on Wednesday morning, trading at $2.238.
Gasoline production averaged 8.8 million barrels daily last week, which compared with 9.1 million barrels daily for the prior week.
Middle distillates fell by 1.3 million barrels in the week to September 29, which compared with a moderate build of 400,000 barrels for the previous week.
Middle distillate production last week averaged 4.7 million barrels daily, which compared with 4.9 million bpd for the previous week.
Oil prices were already under pressure from a more expensive greenback combined with a pessimistic outlook for the global economy to pressure benchmarks.
A tight market combined with the OPEC+ decision to maintain its production cuts failed to counter bearish sentiment. The downward pressure on prices, which began last week with profit-taking from institutional investors, appears to have built some serious momentum.
Brent oil has now fallen below $88 and WTI is down below $86, marking a dramatic shift in sentiment from when traders were calling for triple-digit oil prices last week.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More
Comments
6m gasoline build is about 4 hours of gas station fill ups in America. or less.
why don't you write about that
But they shall triumph and resume their surge soon.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Global Energy Expert
Could be a political motivated move by EIA to try and bring down prices ahead of the winter? Prices are volatile and unfortunatly the US and EU are playing politics with the supposedly free market, making it difficult for average joe to make a living out of their shares portifolios and industries in general since Energy prices keep fluctuating.