U.S. crude inventories up by 14.9 million barrels last week: API

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles jumped by more than four times last week from the previous week’s level, trade group API said Tuesday, bucking market expectations for a drop in inventories as refiners built up product supply, particularly of heating oil, for the winter.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 14.865 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 6, the API, which stands for the American Petroleum Institute, said. The latest crude build compared with the rise of 3.298M barrels reported by the API for the previous week to Dec. 30. Prior to that, the industry body reported back-to-back draws of 1.3M barrels and 3.069M barrels during the weeks to Dec 23 and Dec. 16, respectively.

Specifically for the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for US crude, the API reported a stockpile build of 2.3M barrels. 

The API inventory report also showed a 1.8M barrel rise in gasoline stocks for last week and a 1.1M barrel build 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 drop of 2.243M barrels, versus the 1.694-M barrel build reported during the week to Dec. 30.

On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for a rise of 1.186M barrels over the 346,000-barrel decline in the previous week.

With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a drop of 472,000 barrels versus the prior week’s deficit of 1.427M barrels.