Crude oil inventories in the United States slipped this week, with a 3.835 million barrel decrease, the American Petroleum Institute (API) data showed on Tuesday, bringing the total number of barrels gained so far this year to nearly 55 million barrels.
This week, SPR inventory held steady for the eighth week in a row at 371.6 million barrels-the lowest amount of crude oil in the SPR since December 1983.
Oil prices traded down on Tuesday in the run-up to the data release. At 4:12 p.m. EST, WTI was trading down $3.04 (-3.78%) on the day to $77.42 per barrel, flat on the week. Brent crude was trading down $2.99 (-3.47%) on the day at $83.19-down $0.70 from this same time last week.
U.S. crude oil production stayed at 12.3 million bpd for week ending February 24-the highest production rate since last April 2020. U.S. production is still 800,000 bpd lower than the peak production seen in March 2020.
WTI was trading at $77.41 shortly after the data release.
Gasoline inventories rose by 1.840 million barrels, offsetting last week's API data that showed the fuel inventories fell by 1.774 million barrels. Distillates rose by 1.927 million barrels after falling by 341,000 bpd in the week prior.
Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, increased by 24,000 barrels on top of the 483,000 barrel hike reported last week.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More