The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported a draw in crude oil inventories of 2.533 million barrels for the week ending May 7.
Analysts had predicted a draw of 2.817 million barrels for the week.
In the previous week, the API reported a massive draw in oil inventories of 7.688 million barrels after analysts had predicted a draw of 2.346 million barrels. Since the start of 2020, crude oil inventories have grown by more than 50 million barrels, according to API data.
Oil prices were trading up on the day prior to the data release as OPEC's oil demand forecast remained unchanged in the latest edition of its MMOR and as the Colonial Pipeline outages cause Gulf Coast refiners to curb production.
At 3:23 p.m. EDT, WTI traded at $65.47, or 0.85% up on the day and roughly $0.20 lower per barrel than this time last week. Brent crude traded up at $68.72 per barrel or 0.59% up on the day.
While crude oil inventories fell this week, U.S. oil production was unchanged at 10.9 million bpd on average for the week ending April 30, according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration.
The API reported a build in gasoline inventories of 5.640 million barrels for the week ending May 7-more than offsetting the previous week's 5.308 million barrel draw. Analysts had expected a 600,000 barrel draw for the week.
Distillate stocks saw a decrease in inventories this week of 872,000 barrels for the week, after last week's 3.453-barrel decrease.
Cushing inventories fell this week by 1.209 barrels.
Post data release, at 4:35 p.m. EDT, the WTI benchmark was trading at $65.41 while Brent crude was trading at $68.67 per barrel.
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