Commercial crude oil stocks decreased by 1.4 million barrels, or 0.3 percent, to 455.2 million barrels for the week ending April 12, the EIA data showed. The market expectation was a decline of 1.2 million barrels. Stocks jumped by 7 million barrels during the previous week.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are not included in the commercial crude stocks, remained unchanged at 649.1 million barrels last week, according to the data.
Gasoline inventories decreased by 1.2 million barrels, or 0.5 percent, to 228 million barrels during that period, falling short of expectations that forecast a fall of 2.1 million barrels. During the previous week, gasoline inventories saw a decline of 7.7 million barrels.
- Crude production falls
The U.S.' crude oil production decreased by 106,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 12.1 million bpd (mbpd) for the week ending April 12, the EIA data showed.
Last week, a 6,000 bpd decline in crude production was seen in the state of Alaska, while other U.S. states excluding Hawaii posted an output fall of 100,000 bpd.
This marked the 15th time that U.S. crude production showed a decrease over the past 64 weeks.
Production is expected to average 12.4 mbpd in 2019 and 13.1 mbpd in 2020, according to the EIA's Short Term Energy Outlook report for April.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr