U.S. crude stockpiles rise at smaller rate vs large product draws - EIA

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles rose for a second week in a row but that rise paled against large drawdowns in gasoline and distillates inventories, weekly government data released on Wednesday showed.

Crude balances in storage rose by 1.117 million barrels during the week ended March 17, the U.S. Energy Information Information, or EIA, said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. In the previous week to March 10, there was a build of 1.55M barrels.

Analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile drop of 1.565M barrels instead for last week.

On the gasoline inventory front, the EIA cited a drawdown of  6.399M barrels versus an expected drop of just 1.677M barrels over the 2.061M barrel decline in the previous week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

With distillate stockpiles, the EIA reported a 3.313M barrel draw, against expectations for a drop of 1.5M barrels and versus the prior week’s deficit of 2.537M. Distillates, which are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets, have been the strongest component of the U.S. petroleum complex in terms of demand.