U.S. crude inventories up almost 19 million barrels last week: EIA

By Barani Krishnan 

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles jumped by almost 19 million barrels last week, or 11 times more from the previous week, the government-run Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said Wednesday —  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 18.962M million barrels for the week ended Jan. 6, the EIA said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. In the previous week to Dec. 30, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department reported a crude build of 1.694M barrels.

Analysts tracked by Investing.com had expected a crude draw of 2.243M instead for last week.

The crude build reported by the EIA was even more than that suggested by industry group American Petroleum Institute, or API, in its own weekly inventory report on Tuesday, The API cited a crude stockpile growth of 14.865M barrels for the week ended Jan. 6, up from a rise of 3.298M barrels during the week to Dec. 30.

On the gasoline inventory front, the EIA reported a rise of 4.114M barrels versus expectations for a build of just 1.186M and against the previous week's decline of 346,000.

With distillate stockpiles, the EIA had a drop of  1.069M barrels versus the forecast decline of 472,000 barrels and against the previous week's slide of 1.427M.