U.S. oil inventories fell across the board last week on higher crude exports and gasoline demand, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
Crude inventories fell by 3.7 million barrels to 436.5 million barrels in the week ended July 19, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.6 million-barrel draw.
Net U.S. crude imports fell last week by 388,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 2.7 million bpd, as exports rose 222,000 bpd to 4.2 million bpd.
Stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for U.S. crude futures declined by 1.7 million barrels, the EIA said.
Oil futures were up following the report, with Brent for September delivery rising 99 cents to $82.00 a barrel by 11:39 a.m. EDT (1539 GMT). U.S. crude CLc1 gained $1.04, or 1.4%, to $78.00 per barrel.
Some of the stock drawdowns could be attributed to normalizing operations following an Atlantic storm that hit the U.S. state of Texas, which is the country’s crude oil production and refining hub, earlier this month, analysts said.
“Higher crude exports, lower refinery runs (impact from Hurricane) and rebounding implied demand were the driver of those large draws,” said UBS analyst, Giovanni Staunovo.
Refinery crude runs fell by 521,000 barrels per day (bpd), and refinery utilization rates dropped by 2.1 percentage points to 91.6% of capacity.
Gasoline stocks fell by 5.6 million barrels in the week to 227.4 million barrels, the EIA said, far exceeding expectations for a 400,000-barrel draw.
Product supplied of gasoline, EIA’s measure of demand, rose by 673,000 bpd, the biggest weekly increase since November 2023, to 9.46 million bpd, the most for this time of the year since 2021’s record high of over 10 million bpd, the data showed.
Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 2.8 million barrels to 125.3 million barrels, versus expectations for a 250,000-barrel build, the EIA data showed.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Laila Kearney and Georgina McCartney, Editing by Marguerita Choy)