US crude stockpiles increase slightly, DoE says

US crude oil stockpiles edged higher last week but alongside large declines in product stockpiles, even as domestic US oil output and imports jumped.

During the week ending on 20 October, commercial crude oil inventories grew by 0.9m barrels from the previous week to reach 457.3m barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy's statistical arm.

That came as domestic US oil output recovered from the prior week's sharp fall, rising by 1.1m barrels a day to 9.51m b/d.

Also on the supply side, crude oil imports averaged over 8.1m b/d, up by 640,000 b/d from the previous week.

Despite those increases, gasoline stockpiles were run down by 5.5m barrels with the rate of refinery activity rate increasing from 84.5% in the week before to 87.8%.

In contrast, inventories of distillates decreased by 5.2m barrels.

As of 1720 BST, West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were off by 1.0% to $51.95 a barrel on the ICE.