By Julianne Geiger
The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a huge build of 9.88 million barrels of United States crude oil inventories for the week ending October 19, compared to analyst expectations that this week would see a hefty build in crude oil inventories of 3.694 million barrels.
Last week, API reported a surprise draw in crude oil inventories of 2.13 million barrels for the week. One day later, the Energy Information Administration reported a build instead, of 6.5 million barrels.
The API reported a draw in gasoline inventories as well for week ending October 19 in the amount of 2.8 million barrels. Analysts had predicted a draw of 1.878 million barrels for the week.
Oil prices were down sharply in afternoon trading prior to the release of the API data on inventories as the stock market lost ground earlier in the day. While the Dow Jones regained some ground in late afternoon trading, oil prices continued their decline.
At 4:05pm EDT, WTI was trading down a staggering 4.50% (-$3.12.) at $66.24—a more than $5 loss in a week. The Brent crude benchmark was trading down 4.41% (-$3.52.) at $76.31, down from $81.30 a week ago at this time.
Inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma, site increased this week by 971,000 barrels.
United States crude oil production as estimated by the Energy Information Administration showed a production decline for the week ending October 12, falling to 10.9 million bpd—300,000 bpd off last week’s record production of 11.2 million bpd.
Distillate inventories were down this week by 2.4 million barrels, compared to a larger expected draw of 1.927 million 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 4:38pm EDT, WTI was trading down at $66.29 and Brent was trading down at $76.38.
Source: Oilprice.com
