By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil inventories jumped by almost 5.5 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, announced on Wednesday.
Equally surprising was the slump in gasoline stockpiles, which fell by almost as much, or nearly 5 million barrels.
Crude oil inventories jumped by 5.458 million barrels during the week to Aug. 5 against expectations for a build of 73,000 barrels. In the previous week to July 29, crude stockpiles had also risen nearly 5 million barrels, or by 4.467 million to be precise.
Gasoline inventories declined by 4.978 million barrels last week, against expectations for a drop of 633,000 barrels. In the previous week, gasoline rose by 163,000 barrels.
Distillate stocks surprisingly grew by 2.166 million barrels last week. The expectation had been for a decline of 667,000 barrels. In the previous week, distillates had fallen by 2.4 million barrels.
The EIA inventory report also showed an outflow of 5.3 million from the national emergency oil reserve, bringing the so-called Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s balance to 464.6 million barrels — the lowest since April 1985.
The Biden administration has been leaning heavily on the reserve to add to crude supplies in the market amid the squeeze in global oil availability from the sanctions placed on Russia over the Ukraine war.
The administration is expected to continue withdrawing between 750,000 and 1.0 million barrels from the reserve daily until October to create more supply for refiners to turn into gasoline and bring down pump prices of that fuel. Gasoline at U.S. pumps hit record highs of above $5 a gallon in mid-June, and is down to almost $4 now. The EIA report showed gasoline demand for last week at 9.123 million barrels, not much changed from year-ago levels of 9.43 million. U.S. gasoline exports, meanwhile, were at 1.13 million barrels, the most since December 2018.
Exports of U.S. crude oil itself fell by almost 40% on the week to 2.11 million barrels from a previous 3.51 million.
Production of crude also ticked higher, to an estimated 12.2 million barrels per day from 12.1 million.