U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell sharply last week, posting their largest decline in a year, while gasoline and distillate inventories rose, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories fell by 11.5 million barrels to 420.9 million barrels in the week ending June 13, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.8 million-barrel draw. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub fell by 995,000 barrels, the EIA said. Oil futures extended losses despite the data showing a larger-than-expected decline in crude inventories. Brent crude was trading down $1.20 at $75.25 a barrel by 10:54 a.m. EDT (1454 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) was at $73.82 a barrel, off $1.02.
Prices had turned negative before the data release after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke on the Israel-Iran conflict and said Iran wanted to negotiate.
Net U.S. crude imports fell by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to 1.1 million bpd, the EIA said, while exports rose by 1.1 million bpd to 4.4 million bpd.
The rise in exports came even as the price differential between Brent and WTI futures has narrowed in recent weeks, a move that typically discourages exports.
“The exports that we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks were probably booked a month ago,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, adding that shipments will likely decline in the coming weeks given the narrower spread.
Refinery crude runs fell by 364,000 bpd, while utilization rates fell by 1.1 percentage points in the week to 93.2% of total capacity.
Gasoline stocks rose by 209,000 barrels in the week to 230 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with forecasts for a 627,000-barrel build.
Gasoline product supplied, a proxy for demand, rose by 129,000 bpd to 9.3 million bpd.
“We are seeing increases in gasoline demand as we go into the summer driving season, and that should help to support at least gasoline margins for the refineries over the next couple of weeks,” Lipow said.
Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 514,000 barrels in the week to 109.4 million barrels, versus expectations for a 440,000-barrel build, the data showed. The four-week average for product supplied was at 20 million bpd, off 0.3% from year-ago levels.
(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver and Arathy Somasekhar in Houston Editing by Marguerita Choy)