Oil Inventories Fell by 1M Barrels Last Week: API

March 16, 2021

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – U.S. oil stockpiles unexpectedly fell last week as a narrower weekly draw in gasoline stocks signaled that refiner activity was normalizing after a big freeze in Texas stifled production last month.

U.S. crude inventories fell by 1 million barrels last week, according to an estimate released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute, after a build of 12.79 million barrels the previous week. Gasoline inventories declined by about 930,000, compared with an 8.5 million draw in the prior week, while distillate stocks increased by about 904,000 barrels.

Crude Oil WTI Futures, the U.S. benchmark for oil, fell $0.46 a barrel on the news after settling down $0.59 cents at $64.8 a barrel.

The outlook for oil prices remains positive in the near-term amid an ongoing tightening in supplies, though some suggest the rally in oil prices so far this year will encourage OPEC and other oil producing-nation to ease production curbs.

“We expect economic growth and oil demand to provide resilient and OPEC+- to ease their production restraint in the coming months. These extra barrels will likely be an oil price headwind as the year progresses,” Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) said in a note.

The official government inventory report due Wednesday is expected to show weekly U.S. crude supplies increased by about 2.964 million barrels last week.

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