The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a crude oil draw of 3.16 million barrels of United States crude oil inventories for the week ending July 21, compared to analyst expectations that this week would see a smaller draw in crude oil inventories of 2.331 million barrels.
Last week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a surprise build of 629,000 barrels of crude oil.
The API also reported a huge draw in gasoline inventories for week ending July 21 in the amount of 4.87 million barrels. Analysts predicted the draw, but expectations were for a much smaller one of 713,000 barrels.
Crude oil prices were trading up today as tensions continued to escalate between Iran and the United States and as IMF's prediction that Venezuela would see a million-percent inflation rate this year, making any oil production increases that Venezuela may have had its sights set on seem like a rather lofty goal as PDVSA employees struggle to make ends meet.
At 4:29pm EDT, the WTI benchmark was trading up 0.90% (+$0.61) at $68.50. Brent crude was trading up 0.38% (+$0.28) at $73.34.
US crude oil production hit a new high last week, finally hitting the 11 million bpd mark for the week ending July 13. US production had stagnated in the five weeks prior, holding fast at 10.9 million bpd.
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Distillate inventories were also down this week-by 1.32 million barrels, compared to an expected build of 207,000 barrels. Inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma site rounded out this week of all draws, falling by 808,000 barrels.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration report on crude oil inventories is due to be released on Wednesday at 10:30a.m. EDT.
By 4:43pm EDT, both benchmarks WTI was trading at $68.54 and Brent was trading at $73.36.
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
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