US commercial crude oil inventories increased by 0.4% during the week ending Nov. 24, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories rose by around 1.6 million barrels to 449.7 million barrels, compared to the American Petroleum Institute's expectation of a drop of around 817,000 barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, also increased by about 300,000 barrels to 351.6 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories rose by around 1.8 million barrels to 218.2 million barrels over the same period.
- Crude production rises
EIA data showed that US crude oil production increased by 24,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 13.64 million bpd during the week ending Nov. 24.
US crude oil imports, however, decreased by 696,000 bpd to about 5.83 million bpd over the same period, while crude oil exports fell by 31,000 bpd to approximately 4.75 million bpd.
In the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on Nov. 7, 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 13.15 million bpd.
By Firdevs Yuksel
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr