US commercial crude oil inventories increased by 0.3% during the week ending Jan. 5, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories increased by around 1.3 million barrels to 432.4 million barrels, compared to the American Petroleum Institute's expectation of a drop of around 1.2 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, rose by 600,000 barrels to 355 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories also increased by around 8 barrels to 245 million barrels over the same period.
- Crude production drops
EIA data showed that US crude oil production fell by 42,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 13.59 million bpd during the week ending Jan. 5.
US crude oil imports dropped by 654,000 bpd to about 6.24 million bpd, and crude oil exports fell by 1.9 million bpd to approximately 3.32 million bpd over the same period.
In the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on Dec. 12, the EIA predicted that crude oil output in the country would reach an average of 12.90 million bpd this year.
Next year, crude oil output in the country is expected to reach 13.11 million bpd.
By Zeynep Beyza Kilic
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr