The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported a draw on crude inventories of 5.8 million barrels for the week ending Feb. 12.
Analysts had forecast an inventory draw of 2.429 billion barrels for the week.
The previous week, the API reported a draw of 3.5 billion barrels of oil inventories after analysts had predicted a construction of 985,000 barrels.
Oil prices were quoted Tuesday before the release of data, backed by freezing temperature clashes in several parts of the United States, including Texas, that caused production shutdowns across a good number of oil-producing countries.
At 3:17 pm EDT, ahead of Tuesday’s data release, WTI had risen $ 1.15 a day (+ 1.92%) to $ 61.20, almost an increase of $ 3 over that time the last week.
The Brent crude benchmark had risen $ 1.07 at the time (+ 1.69%) to $ 64.41 (it also rose nearly $ 3 a week).
U.S. oil production rose 100,000 barrels a day to 11 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The API reported a 3.9 million barrel gasoline inventory build-up for the week ending Feb. 12, after building 4.8 billion barrels the previous week. Analysts had expected a construction of 1.397 billion barrels for the week.
Distillate stocks fell 3.5 billion barrels during the week, after last week’s 487,000 barrels.
Fill levels of Enbridge tanks south of Cushing from Friday 12 February.
Cushing inventories fell by 3.00 million barrels. Last week, Cushing’s inventories fell by 1.378 billion barrels. “As of Tuesday’s measure, Enbridge shares have fallen more than 2 million bbl since Friday, February 5,” Dan Schnurr, co-founder of Geospatial Insight, told Oilprice.
Following the release of data, at 16:40 EDT, the WTI benchmark was trading at $ 61.25, while Brent crude was trading at $ 64.45.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.ocm
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