U.S. crude inventories up 6.2M barrels last week - API

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles extended their builds by around 6 million barrels last week, according to a report from petroleum trade group API which indicated the government was likely to cite a 10th straight weekly build in crude in its own data due on Wednesday.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 6.203M barrels during the week ended Feb. 24, the API, which stands for the American Petroleum Institute, said. In the prior two weeks, the API reported back-to-back crude builds of around 10M barrels.

Specifically for the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude, the API reported a stockpile build of 0.483M barrels, after the previous week’s rise of 0.481M barrels.

The API inventory report, however, showed a 1.774 M-barrel drop in gasoline stocks for last week and a 0.341M-barrel deficit in distillate stockpiles. In the prior week, it had a 0.894M-barrel rise for gasoline stocks and a 1.374M-barrel gain for distillates.

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 the week ended Feb. 24, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile build of 0.457M barrels, versus the 7.648M barrel rise reported during the week to Feb. 17.

On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for a build of 0.464M barrels over the 1.856M-barrel decline in the previous week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a drop of 0.462M barrels versus the prior week’s gain of 2.698M. 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.