By Dan Molinski


U.S. crude-oil inventories rose sharply last week, but gasoline stockpiles fell by the most in 10 months, according to data released Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration.

Benchmark U.S. oil prices that were sharply lower before the mixed-to-bearish report reduced those declines afterward. The Nymex front-month crude contract for September delivery was recently down 2.1%, at $88.56 a barrel.

Crude-oil stockpiles jumped by 5.5 million barrels, to 432 million barrels, and are now about 5% below the five-year average, the EIA said. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted crude stockpiles would rise by 200,000 barrels from the prior week.

Oil stored at Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for U.S. stocks, increased by 723,000 barrels from the previous week, to 25.2 million barrels, the EIA said in its weekly report.

U.S. crude-oil production rose by 100,000 barrels a day, to 12.2 million barrels a day, the highest level since April 2020, according to the EIA.

Gasoline stockpiles dropped by 5 million barrels, to 220.3 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations for inventories to decrease by just 500,000 barrels from the previous week.

Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, rose by 2.2 million barrels, to 111.5 million barrels, and are now about 24% below the five-year average, the EIA said. Analysts were forecasting distillates inventories would fall by 500,000 barrels from the previous week.

The refining capacity utilization rate exploded higher, rising by 3.3 percentage points from the previous week, to 94.3%, which compares with analysts' forecasts for just a 0.5 percentage-point increase.


 
U.S. oil inventories for the week ended Aug. 5: 
 
             Crude  Gasoline  Distillates  Refinery Use 
EIA data:     +5.5      -5.0       +2.2         +3.3 
Forecast:     +0.2      -0.5       -0.5         +0.5 
 
Note: Numbers in millions of barrels, with the exception of refinery use, which is in percentage points. 
 

Write to Dan Molinski at dan.molinski@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

08-10-22 1108ET