US commercial crude oil inventories declined by 0.8% during the week ending June 16, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) late Thursday.
Inventories fell by around 3.8 million barrels to 463.3 million barrels, relative to the American Petroleum Institute’s expectation of a fall of 1.2 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks fell by about 1.7 million barrels to 350 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories, however, increased by around 500,000 million barrels to 221.4 million barrels over the same period.
– Crude production declined
EIA data showed that US crude oil imports decreased by about 220,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 6.16 million bpd during the week ending June 16, while crude oil exports rose by 1.27 million bpd to about 4.54 million bpd.
US crude oil production, meanwhile, decreased by 197,000 bpd and stood at 12.62 million bpd over the same period.
In the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on June 6, the EIA predicted crude oil output in the country would reach an average of 12.61 million bpd this year, up from 11.89 million bpd last year.
Next year, crude oil output in the country is expected to reach 12.77 million bpd.
