Latest News

EIA: US crude stocks rise as gasoline demand increases after July 4 drop

The U.S. crude stockpiles unexpectedly rose last week. Meanwhile, gasoline inventories declined on the back of a strong demand for fuel ahead of the Fourth of July weekend.

The EIA reported that crude inventories increased by 7.1m barrels, to 426m barrels for the week ending July 4. This was compared to analysts' polled expectations of a draw of 2.1m barrels. The rise included a weekly adjustment of 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd). The EIA uses the adjustment figure to balance its books by looking at "unaccounted crude oil."

"Overall demand has jumped up again, so the market views the increase in crude supply as a one-off event," said Phil Flynn an analyst at Price Futures Group.

The EIA reported that gasoline stocks dropped by 2.7 millions barrels to 229.5million barrels during the week, which is nearly twice the expected 1.5 million barrel draw.

Last week, gasoline demand increased 6% to 9,2 million bpd.

Flynn said, "If you look at the gasoline demand figures, they are back to a respectable level."

Crude futures have recovered some of their losses following the EIA data indicating strong fuel demand.

Brent crude futures fell 19 cents or 0.3% to $69.96 per barrel at 10:47 am ET. ET (1447 GMT), whereas U.S. West Texas Intermediate fell 26 cents or 0.4% to $68.07 per barrel.

The EIA reported that crude stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma's delivery hub for WTI increased by 464,000 barrels.

Data showed that distillate stocks, which includes diesel and heating oil fell by 825,000 barges in the past week, as opposed to expectations of a drop of 300,000 barrels.

The refinery crude run, on the other hand, dropped by 99,000 bpd and refinery utilization rates decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 94.7%.

The EIA reported that net U.S. crude exports dropped by 1,36 million barrels per day. Reporting by Arathy S. Somasekhar, Houston. Editing by Marguerita C. Choy

(source: Reuters)