US oil inventories jump during latest week, DoE says

US crude oil stockpiles soared last week, official data showed, but only due to a sharp increase in net imports, even as product inventories were run down, pointing to resilient demand, analysts said.

According to the US Department of Energy, over the week ending on 1 March, commercial crude oil inventories rose by 7.1m barrels to hit 425.9m barrels, which was roughly 4% above their five-year average.

Pushing inventories higher, imports fell by 1.084m barrels per day over the week and in parallel, exports were down by 556,000 b/d.

Meanwhile, product stockpiles went the other way, with those of gasoline shrinking by 4.2m barrels, those of distillate fuels by 2.m barrels and those of propane/propylene by 2.0m barrels.

Both gasoline and distillate inventories were left about 3% below their respective five-year averages, despite the rise in refinery inputs and an increase in refineries' rate of capacity use to 87.5%.

Domestic US oil output meanwhile was steady at 12.1m b/d.