Big weekly drop in U.S. crude, gasoline stocks; slight distillates build - EIA

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil and gasoline stockpiles showed huge weekly declines last week while inventories of distillates registered a rise, the government’s energy data agency said Wednesday.

Crude stockpiles fell by 6.076 million barrels during the week ended March 24, the Washington-based Energy Information Administration said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report.

Industry analysts tracked by Investing.com had forecast a build of 92,000 barrels instead for last week versus the rise of 1.117M barrels during the previous week to March 17.

On the gasoline inventory front, the EIA reported a drawdown of 2.904M barrels against an expected drop of 1.625M barrels and the 6.4M-barrel decline in the previous week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

With distillate stockpiles, there was a build of 281,000 barrels. Analysts had forecast a drop of 1.455M barrels versus the prior week’s deficit of 3.313M. 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.