US commercial crude oil inventories increased by 0.3% during the week ending Oct. 20, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories rose by around 1.4 million barrels to 421.1 million barrels, compared to the American Petroleum Institute's expectation of a fall of around 2.6 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, remained unchanged at 351.3 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories increased by about 200,000 barrels to 223.5 million barrels over the same period.
- Crude production rises
EIA data showed that US crude oil production increased by 13,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 13.63 million bpd during the week ending Oct. 20.
US crude oil imports also rose by 71,000 bpd to about 6.01 million bpd over the same period, while crude oil exports fell by 468,000 bpd to approximately 4.83 million bpd.
In the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on Oct. 11, the EIA predicted that crude oil output in the country would reach an average of 12.92 million bpd this year.
Next year, crude oil output in the country is expected to reach 13.12 million bpd.
By Zeynep Beyza Kilic
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr