The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported a draw on crude inventories of 5.437 billion barrels for the week ending Sept. 10.
It exceeded analysts ’expectations that they had estimated a loss of 3.903 billion barrels during the week.
The previous week, the API reported a draw in oil inventories of 2.882 billion barrels, a loss less than the 3.832 billion barrels that analysts had predicted.
Oil prices fell on Tuesday ahead of the release of the data, despite the volatile combination of IEA expectations for a sharp rise in global oil demand from next month and production disruptions in due to Hurricanes Ida and Nicholas.
WTI fell 0.30% on Tuesday afternoon until data release.
At 13:55 pm EST, WTI was trading at $ 70.24, nearly $ 1 a week. Brent crude traded down 0.20% a day at $ 73.43.
Oil inventories have dropped more than 70 million barrels in what API data shows this year, and EIA suggests inventories are 6% lower than the five-year average for this time of year.
For this week specifically, oil inventories were significantly affected by a sharp decline in U.S. oil production, which fell 1.5 million barrels per day last week, the sharpest decline in a week since the EIA began tracking the data, to just 10 million barrels per day as Hurricane Ida continued to shut down oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico.
The API reported a scope in gasoline inventories 2,761 million barrels for the week ending Sept. 10, compared to the previous week’s construction of 6,414 barrels.
Inventories of distillates experienced a decline in inventories this week 2,888 million barrels during the week, compared to last week’s decrease of 3.748 billion barrels.
Cushhing inventories fell this week 1,345 million barrels after last week’s increase of 1.794 billion barrels.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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