U.S. crude inventories up 10.5 million barrels last week: API

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles resumed their builds last week, trade group API said Tuesday, as demand for both transportation fuels and heating products remained weaker than unusual during an unseasonably warm winter.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 10.507 million barrels during the week ended Feb. 10, the API, which stands for the American Petroleum Institute, said. In the previous week to Feb. 3, the API reported a crude draw of 2.184M barrels.

Specifically for the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude, the API reported a stockpile build of 1.945M barrels, after the previous week’s rise of 0.178M barrels.

The API inventory report also showed a 0.846M-barrel rise in gasoline stocks for last week and a 1.728M-barrel gain in distillate stockpiles.

The API numbers serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, on Wednesday.

For last week, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile build of 1.166M barrels in addition to the 2.423M rise during the previous week to Feb. 3. Crude stocks have risen more than 30M barrels over the past seven weeks.

On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for an addition of 1.543M barrels after a build of 5.008M in the prior week. Gasoline inventories have gone up by more than 16M barrels to date since 2023 began. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a rise of 0.447M after the previous week’s growth of 2.932M. Distillates, which are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets, had been the strongest demand component of the U.S. petroleum complex until last month.