Oil Prices Hold Up Against Falling U.S. Crude Oil Inventories

Crude oil inventories in the United States rose this week by 2.264 million barrels for the week ending June 14, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API).

For the week prior, the API reported a 2.428 million barrel draw in crude inventories.

On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 0.4 million barrels as of June 14. Inventories are now at 370.9 million barrels-the highest level since March of 2023, but still well below the 656 million barrels in inventory in June 2020.

Oil prices were trading up ahead of the API data release on Tuesday. At 3:48 pm ET, Brent crude was trading up $1.01on the day at $85.26-up roughly $3.50 per barrel from this time last week as the market continued to recover from the sharp dropoff following OPEC's decision to possibly rollback production cuts later this year. The U.S. benchmark WTI was also trading up on the day at +1.39% to $81.45-a roughly $3.50 gain week over week.

Gasoline inventories fell again this week, this time by 1.077 million barrels, after last week's 2.549-million-barrel decrease. As of last week, gasoline inventories are slightly below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.

Distillate inventories rose again this week, by 538,000 barrels, compared to last week's 972,000-barrel rise. Distillates were about 7% below the five-year average for the week ending May June 7, the latest EIA data shows.

Cushing inventories rose this week, according to API data, by 524,000 barrels after falling by 1.937 million barrels in the previous week.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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