The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported this week a small accumulation of 567,000 barrels of crude oil.
The draw comes even though the Department of Energy released 6 million barrels of Strategic Oil Reserves in the week ending May 20.
U.S. crude stockpiles have lost about 75 million barrels since early 2021 and about 18 million barrels since early 2020, according to API data.
The previous week, the API reported a drop in crude inventories of 2.45 billion barrels after analysts forecast an accumulation of 1.533 billion barrels.
Oil prices calmed down on Tuesday, with a flat WTI quote hovering 0% from Monday at $ 110.30 a barrel a day at 11:21 a.m. ET, a drop of approx. $ 4.50 a barrel a week. Brent crude was trading at 0.20% a day at $ 113.70, a drop of nearly $ 1 a barrel a week, with the spread between the two benchmarks now completely evaporated.
U.S. crude oil production rose to 11.9 million barrels a day the week ended May 13th. U.S. crude oil production is down 1.2 million barrels a day from the pre-pandemic era.
This week, the API reported a sharp drop in gasoline inventories of 4.223 million barrels for the week ending May 20, in addition to the 5.102 million barrels of the previous week.
Distillate stocks also experienced an inventory tie, of 949,000 barrels during the week compared to the increase of 1.075 million barrels last week.
Cushing saw a 731,000-barrel draw this week. Cushing’s inventories crashed to 25.839 million barrels the previous week, on May 13, according to EIA data, a drop of 59.2 million barrels in early 2021 and 37.3 million barrels at the end of 2021.
At 16:36 ET, WTI was trading at $ 109.80 (-0.41%) and Brent was trading at $ 113.50 (+ 0.05%).
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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