The United States crude inventories fell last week as demand continues to grow, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
The decline in the crude inventories were higher than expected. Crude inventories fell by 7.6 million barrels in the week ended June 18 to 459.1 million barrels, the lowest record since March 2020, according to Reuters. Analysts’ in a Reuters poll had expected a fall of 3.9 million-barrel.
Brent Crude oil price rose to nearly $76 per barrel Wednesday evening. Although it is trading at $75.52, up by 0.44% at the time of this report.
Similarly, US crude oil Western Texas Intermediate rose above $74 per barrel Wednesday evening. At the time of this report, it is still trading at $73.42 per barrel, up by 0.47%.
Western Canadian Select, also rose above $61 per barrel Wednesday evening. It is currently trading at $60.21 per barrel, up 0.55%.
Nigerian Bonny Light traded 1.10% up at $75.08 per barrel.
Also, refinery crude runs declined by 225,000 barrels per day in the last week, however, with utilization rates dropping by 0.4 percentage point to a still-strong 92.2%.
Similarly, US. gasoline stocks which analysts expected to rise by 833,000 barrels actually fell by 2.9 million barrels in the week.
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“You have a gasoline draw and a crude oil draw in the same week, so apparent gasoline demand has caught up to all the crude oil going through the refineries,” Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York.
The four-week average of overall product supplied stood at 19.5 million bpd. Although this is about 14.5% higher than last year during the pandemic, it is still lower than the 2019 levels.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.