US commercial crude oil inventories fell by 1.7% in the week ending May 15, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on late Wednesday.
Inventories declined by 7.9 million barrels to around 445 million barrels, while market expectations had pointed to a decrease of 2.5 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, also fell by 9.9 million barrels to 374.2 million barrels, the data revealed.
Over the same period, gasoline inventories dropped by 1.5 million barrels to about 214.2 million barrels.
- Crude production decreases
EIA data showed that US crude oil production fell by 8,000 barrels per day (bpd) to about 13.7 million bpd during the week ending May 15.
US crude oil imports increased by 116,000 bpd to around 6.02 million bpd, while exports rose by 112,000 bpd to about 5.6 million bpd over the same period.
In its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on May 12, the EIA forecasted that US crude oil output would average 13.65 million bpd in 2026.
By Firdevs Yuksel
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr
