WTI dips after weekly DoE oil inventory numbers

US oil stockpiles rose last week despite a drop in the country's net imports, helped by higher domestic production and a drop in refinery demand.

Commercial crude oil inventories grew by 1.9m barrels (consensus: -1.3m barrels) to reach 396.0m barrels over the week ending on 21 September, the Department of Energy said.

In parallel, those of gasoline rose by 1.5m barrels and those of distillates fell by 2.2m barrels.

Net imports declined by 495,000b/d, although domestic oil output increased by 100,000 to 11.1m b/d.

Refineries operated at 90.4% of capacity, according to the government.

"Somewhat surprisingly, given the plunge in refinery activity, gasoline stocks also rose last week. Indeed, implied gasoline demand fell for the fourth consecutive week," Capital Economics's Caroline Bain said.

"In contrast, distillate demand rebounded and there was a dip in distillate stocks. The weakness in gasoline demand probably reflects the rise in retail prices but, again, last week’s data may have been distorted by the storms."

As of 1659 BST, front month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were trading lower by 0.38% to $81.56 a barrel on NYMEX.