The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a significant decline in crude oil inventories in the United States this week, with stocks falling by 4.495 million barrels for the week ending July 26. This draw exceeded analysts’ expectations of a 2.333 million barrel decrease. This marks the fifth consecutive week of inventory declines as estimated by API, totaling a loss of 24 million barrels over this period.
In contrast, the Department of Energy (DoE) noted a 0.7 million barrel increase in crude oil inventories within the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), bringing the total to 375.1 million barrels as of July 26.
Ahead of the API’s data release, oil prices continued to decline on Tuesday. At 03:30 pm ET, Brent crude was down $0.92 (-1.15%) to $78.86 per barrel, while WTI fell by $0.78 (-1.03%) to $75.03 per barrel. This reflects decreases of nearly $3 and $2.30 per barrel, respectively, compared to the previous week.
Additionally, gasoline inventories saw a decrease of 1.917 million barrels this week, following a 2.8-million-barrel drop the previous week. According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), gasoline stocks are now 2% below the five-year average for this time of year.
Distillate inventories also contracted, declining by 322,000 barrels this week in addition to a 1.5-million-barrel decrease reported the previous week. As of the week ending July 19, distillate stocks were approximately 9% below the five-year average.
Furthermore, Cushing inventories registered a decline of 929,000 barrels this week, following a drop of 1.6 million barrels in the previous week, according to API data.
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