US commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 1% during the week ending Dec.1, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories fell by around 4.6 million barrels to 445 million barrels, compared to the American Petroleum Institute’s expectation of a rise of around 594,000 barrels.
However, strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, increased by about 300,000 barrels to 351.9 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories also rose by around 5.4 million barrels to 223.6 million barrels over the same period.
– Crude production falls
EIA data showed that US crude oil production decreased by 108,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 13.43 million bpd during the week ending Dec. 1.
US crude oil imports, however, increased by 1.68 million bpd to about 7.51 million bpd over the same period, while crude oil exports fell by 416,000 bpd to approximately 4.34 million bpd.
In the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on Nov. 7, the EIA predicted that crude oil output in the country would reach an average of 12.90 million bpd this year.
Next year, crude oil output in the country is expected to reach 13.15 million bpd.
