US commercial crude oil inventories declined by 0.5% during the week ending Sept. 15, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories fell by around 2.1 million barrels to 418.5 million barrels, compared to the American Petroleum Institute’s expectation of a drop of around 5.2 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, increased by 600,000 barrels to stand at 351.2 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories increased by 800,000 barrels to 219.5 million barrels over the same period.
– Crude production fell
EIA data showed that US crude oil production fell by 5,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 13.31 million bpd during the week ending Sept. 15.
US crude oil imports declined by about 1 million bpd to around 6.5 million bpd over the same period, while crude oil exports increased by around 1.9 million bpd to approximately 5 million bpd.
In the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on Sept. 12, the EIA predicted that crude oil output in the country would reach an average of 12.78 million bpd this year.
Next year, crude oil output in the country is expected to reach 13.16 million bpd.
