WTI holds onto gains after weekly DoE inventory numbers

Crude oil inventories in the US fell sharply last week, on the heels of a big drop in imports and still loft levels of refinery demand.

Commercial US oil stockpiles, which excludes those in the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, declined by 5.8m barrels (consensus: -1.5m barrels) over the week ending on 17 August to reach 408.4m barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy's statistical arm.

In parallel, gasoline inventories rose by 1.2m barrels, putting them approximately 6% above their five-year average, while those of distillates jumped by 1.8m barrels.

Imports declined by a massive 1.496m b/d, but the fall was partly offset by a 437,000 b/d drop in America's exports.

Domestic US oil production meanwhile continued to climb, rising by 100,000 barrels per day to hit 11.0m b/d.

Refineries meanwhile were operating at 98.1% of capacity, the same level as during the prior week.

Following the release of Wednesday's DoE report, from month West Texas Intermediate were standing at $66.98 a barrel on NYMEX, 1.702% higher on the day and little changed versus where they had been prior to the data.

To take note of, figures from the American Petroleum Institute published on the day before had revealed a 5.2m barrel drop in inventories, possibily alerting traders of what to expect.