Oil Rises Despite Small Inventory Draws

The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported a draw in crude oil inventories of 816,000 barrels for the week ending August 6, bringing the total 2021 crude draw so far to nearly 56 million barrels, using API data.

Analysts had expected a loss of 1.050 million barrels for the week.

In the previous week, the API reported a draw in oil inventories of 879,000 barrels—a figure much smaller than the nearly 3 million barrel draw that analysts had predicted.

The price of a WTI barrel had risen earlier on Tuesday after a brutal Monday as fears of the Delta variant's effect on oil demand in Asia and the United States subsided.

WTI gained more than 3% on Tuesday afternoon leading up to the data release.

At 4:03 p.m. EST, WTI was trading at $68.48—a $2 per barrel gain on the day, but still a $2 loss from this time last week. Brent crude was trading up 2.51% for the day at $70.77—also down nearly $2 per barrel week on week.

While U.S. crude oil stocks continue to fall, U.S. oil production has remained on a fairly even keel that has risen from 11 million bpd at the start of the year to 11.2 million bpd now, where it sits for the second week in a row.

The API reported a draw in gasoline inventories of 1.114 million barrels for the week ending August 6—compared to the previous week's 5.751-million-barrel draw.

Distillate stocks saw an increase in inventories this week of 673,000 barrels for the week, nearly offsetting last week's 717,000-barrel decrease.

Cushing inventories fell this week by 413,000 barrels, after last week's 659,000-barrel increase.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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