US commercial crude oil inventories decreased 0.3% during the week ending Sept. 30, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories fell by around 1.4 million barrels to 429.2 million barrels, against the market expectation of a drop of around 1.77 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, excluded in commercial crude stocks, also fell by 6.2 million barrels to 416.4 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories decreased by 4.7 million barrels to 207.5 million barrels over the same period.
– Crude production rises
EIA data showed that US crude oil imports decreased by 502,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 5.94 million bpd during the week ending Sept. 30, while crude oil exports fell by 95,000 bpd to 4.55 million bpd.
US crude oil production, meanwhile, increased by 2,000 bpd to approximately 12.43 million bpd over the same period.
In the September Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the EIA forecasted that crude oil output in the US would average 11.8 million bpd in 2022, up from 11.2 million bpd in 2021.
Crude oil output in the country in 2023 is forecast to reach 12.6 million bpd.
