Commercial crude inventories increase by 0.8 million barrels
Crude oil and gasoline inventories rose in the U.S. while crude oil production fell slightly last week, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Gasoline inventories showed an increase of 5.4 million barrels, or 2.4%, to 234.8 million barrels during that period, more than the market expectation of an increase of 2.5 million barrels. The previous week saw gasoline inventories jump by 3.4 million barrels.
The U.S.' crude oil production decreased by 92,000 bpd to around 12.8 million bpd for the week ending Dec. 6, the EIA data showed. While there was an 8,000 bpd increase in the state of Alaska, output from other U.S. states, excluding Hawaii, fell by a total of 100,000 bpd.
Crude oil production in the U.S. is expected to average 13.2 million bpd in 2020, according to the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook report for December.
