The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released new data on Wednesday that shows the country’s crude oil stocks rose by 1.9 million barrels during the week ending April 17. According to official data, the increase puts commercial stocks at 465.7 million barrels, which is still 3% higher than the five-year norm for this time of year.
The EIA’s data release comes after API’s findings, which were made public a day earlier and showed that 4.4 million barrels of crude oil were drawn from stocks during that time.
On Wednesday morning, crude prices were rising. Brent was trading at $99.90 a barrel at 8:59 a.m. in New York, up $1.42 (+1.44%) for the day and about $3.70 per barrel from this time last week. While WTI was down almost $1.50 per barrel week over week, it was up $1.32 per barrel (+1.47%) in early morning trading at $90.99.
In addition to the 6.3 million barrels lost in the previous week, the EIA stated that total motor gasoline stockpiles had dropped by 4.6 million barrels. According to the latest data, the average daily production of gasoline rose to 10.1 million barrels. Production of middle distillates increased to an average of 5.0 million barrels per day, while stocks dropped by 3.4 million barrels. Inventory of distillate is 8% lower than the five-year average.
Over the past four weeks, total products supplied—a measure of U.S. oil demand—averaged 20.5 million barrels per day, up 3.0% from the same time last year. Over the past four weeks, the average daily demand for gasoline was 8.8 million barrels, while the average supply of distillate was 4.0 million barrels, up 3.4% year over year.
