The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a build-up of crude oil inventories of 2.70 million barrels for the week ending Dec. 18 on Tuesday.
Analysts had forecast a stock draw of 3,135 million barrels for the week.
Last week, the API reported that oil inventories had accumulated 1,973 million barrels, after analysts predicted a draw of 1,937 million barrels.
Both Brent and WTI were in trouble Tuesday afternoon for the release of the data, despite previous vaccine optimism and a new stimulus package approved in the United States. The oil price drag is a new strain of Covid-19 that triggered massive border closures around the world in an effort to limit the spread of the mutated strain.
Leading up to Tuesday’s data release, at 2:15 p.m. EDT, WTI was down $ 0.78 (-1.63%) to $ 47.19, down from $ 0.30 a barrel this week. The Brent crude oil benchmark was down $ 0.62 (+ 1.22%) at the time to $ 50.29 – down nearly $ 0.40 a barrel this week.
According to the Energy Information Administration, US oil production fell to 11.0 million bpd for the week ending December 11, 2.1 million bpd lower than the record level of 13.1 million bpd reached in March.
The API reported a small decrease in gasoline supplies of 224,000 barrels of gasoline for the week ending December 18 – compared to the previous week’s 828,000 barrels. Analysts had expected an increase of 1,210 million barrels for the week.
Distillate stocks increased 1.03 million barrels this week, compared to the increase of 4.762 million barrels last week, while Cushing inventories increased 341,000 barrels this week.
At 4:33 PM EDT, the WTI benchmark traded at $ 46.92, while Brent crude was trading at $ 49.98, while the latter fell below $ 50.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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