US commercial crude oil inventories increased by 3.6% during the week ending Feb. 10, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) late Wednesday.
Inventories rose by around 16.3 million barrels to 471.4 million barrels, against the market expectation of an increase of around 321,000 barrels.
However, strategic petroleum reserves, excluded from commercial crude stocks stayed unchanged at 371.6 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories increased by 2.3 million barrels to 241.9 million barrels over the same period.
– Crude production rises
EIA data showed that US crude oil imports decreased by 826,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 6.23 million bpd during the week ending Feb. 10, while crude oil exports increased by 246,000 bpd to about 3.14 million bpd.
US crude oil production, meanwhile, rose by 4,000 bpd to 12.75 million bpd over the same period.
In the February Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the EIA forecasted that crude oil output in the US would average 12.49 million bpd in 2023, up from 11.90 million bpd in 2022.
Crude oil output in the country in 2024 is forecast to reach 12.65 million bpd.
