Oil Prices Dip As EIA Confirms Rising Crude Inventories

Crude oil inventories in the United States increased by 5.2 million barrels during the week ending October 31, after losing 6.9 million barrels in the week prior, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The increase brings commercial stockpiles to 421.2 million barrels according to government data, which is 4% below the five-year average for this time of year.

The EIA’s data release follows API’s figures that were released a day earlier, which suggested that crude oil inventories saw a large build in inventory of 6.5 million barrels.

Crude prices were trading down on Wednesday morning in the run-up to the EIA data release. At 10:02 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $64.11 per barrel—down $0.33 (-0.51%) on the day and a $0.65 per barrel increase over last week’s level. WTI was also trading down, by $0.41 per barrel (-0.68%) in mid-morning trade.

For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported that inventories had contracted by 4.7 million barrels, after the week prior’s large 5.9-million-barrel decrease. The most recent figures showed average daily gasoline production increasing to 9.8 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories decreased by another 600,000 barrels, with production increasing by 211,000 barrels daily to an average of 4.7 million barrels daily. Distillate inventories are now 9% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Total products supplied over the last four weeks slipped to 20.3 million barrels per day, down 1.2% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.7 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied fell to 3.8 million barrels—down by 1.7 percent year over year.