US commercial crude oil inventories fell by 0.9% in the week ending June 26, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories declined by around 3.8 million barrels to 408.4 million barrels, whereas market expectations had forecast a decrease of around 2.9 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, also fell by about 5.5 million barrels to 325.7 million barrels, the data revealed.
Over the same period, gasoline inventories decreased by approximately 2.3 million barrels to 214 million barrels.
– Crude production decreases
EIA data showed that US crude oil production fell by 9,000 barrels per day (bpd) to about 13.81 million bpd during the week ending June 26.
US crude oil imports decreased by 291,000 bpd to around 5.3 million bpd, and exports fell by 661,000 bpd to about 4 million bpd over the same period.
In its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on June 9, the EIA forecasted that US crude oil output would average 13.72 million bpd in 2026.
