Weekly US crude oil stockpiles jump amid surge in net imports, DoE says

US crude oil stockpiles jumped again last week, partly on the back of a surge in the country's net imports.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the Department of Energy's statistical arm, crude oil stockpiles jumped by 8.2m barels over the week ending on 18 January to hit 445.0m barrels.

However, while gasoline inventories also saw a strong increase, rising by 4.1m barrels (consensus: 2.655m), those of distillate fuels shrank by 0.6m (consensus: -0.2m).

Gasoline and distillate inventories were left standing roughly 6% and 2% below their respective five-year averages, the EIA said in a statement.

In parallel, the country's net imports surged by 1.595m b/d to hit 6.156m b/d, helped by a 931,000 b/d drop in US exports to 2.035m b/d.

Domestic oil output meanwhile was little changed from the prior week at 11.9m b/d.

Refineries meanwhile ran at 92.9% of capacity.

Following the release of the data, as of 1728 GMT front month Brent crude oil futures were edging up by 0.294% to $61.32 a barrel on the ICE.