By Dan Molinski
U.S. crude-oil inventories rose slightly as expected last week, while fuel inventories saw moderate declines, according to data released Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration.
Benchmark U.S. oil prices that were lower before the mixed report was released remained so afterward. The Nymex front-month crude contract for June delivery was recently down 0.7% at $101.02 a barrel.
Crude-oil stockpiles rose by 691,000 barrels to 414.4 million barrels, and are now about 16% below the five-year average, the EIA said. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted crude stockpiles would rise by 600,000 barrels from the prior week.
Oil stored at Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for U.S. stocks, increased by 1.3 million barrels from the previous week to 27.5 million barrels, the EIA said in its weekly report.
U.S. crude-oil production was unchanged from the previous week at 11.9 million barrels a day, according to the EIA.
Gasoline stockpiles surprisingly declined by 1.6 million barrels to 230.8 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations for inventories to increase by 100,000 barrels from the previous week.
Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, dropped by 1.4 million barrels to 107.3 million barrels, and are now about 21% below the five-year average, the EIA said. Analysts were forecasting distillates inventories would fall by 100,000 barrels from the previous week.
The refining capacity utilization rate fell unexpectedly by 0.7 percentage point from the previous week to 90.3%, compared with analysts' forecasts for a 0.2 percentage-point increase.
U.S. oil inventories for the week ended April 22:
Crude Gasoline Distillates Refinery Use
EIA data: +0.7 -1.6 -1.4 -0.7
Forecast: +0.6 +0.1 -0.1 +0.2
Note: Numbers in millions of barrels, with the exception of refinery use, which is in percentage points.
Write to Dan Molinski at dan.molinski@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-27-22 1106ET
