U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose unexpectedly last week to their highest in nearly two years, while gasoline and distillate inventories fell, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

Crude inventories rose by 1.1 million barrels in the week to March 17 to 481.2 million barrels, their highest since May 2021. Analysts in a Reuters poll had expected a 1.6 million-barrel drop.

Oil inventories have mostly built since mid-December, the data showed.

“(The build) is obviously a concern for the bulls here,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho. “We just have a lot of crude oil in storage and it’s not going to go away anytime soon as it looks like we keep on posting builds.”

Oil futures turned positive after the data. Brent crude futures and U.S. crude futures last traded up about 0.8% to $75.93 a barrel and $70.25 a barrel, respectively.

Inventories on the East Coast, however, fell to 6.53 million barrels, the lowest on record, despite refinery utilization in the region falling to the lowest since February 2021, the data showed.

Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub fell by 1.1 million barrels last week, the EIA said.

Refinery crude runs fell by 22,000 barrels per day (bpd) and refinery utilization rates (USOIRU=ECI) rose by 0.4 percentage point in the week.

Gasoline stocks fell by 6.4 million barrels to 229.6 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations for a 1.7 million-barrel drop.​

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 3.3 million barrels in the week to 116.4 million barrels, versus expectations for a 1.5 million-barrel drop, the data showed.

Net U.S. crude imports rose last week by 51,000 bpd, the EIA said.
Source: Reuters