Commercial crude oil inventories in the US decreased by 0.9% for the week ending Sept. 11 to their lowest level since April, according to data released by the country's Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories fell by 4.4 million barrels to 496 million barrels against the market expectation of a 1.3 million-barrel rise.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are not included in the commercial crude stocks, fell to 645.7 million barrels for the week ending Sept. 11, the data showed.
Gasoline inventories also dropped by 400,000 barrels, or 0.2%, to 231.5 million barrels over that period.
- Crude production increases
According to EIA data, US crude oil imports decreased by 416,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 5 million bpd for the week ending Sept. 11. while crude oil exports saw a decline of 349,000 bpd to 2.6 million bpd.
The data showed that US crude oil production expanded by 902,000 bpd to approximately 11.4 million bpd during the same period.
US crude output is estimated to be 11.4 million bpd in 2020 and 11.1 million bpd in 2021, down from 12.2 million bpd in 2019, according to the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook forecast for September.
In November 2018, the US first surpassed Saudi Arabia, and then Russia to become the world's biggest crude oil producer.
By Firdevs Yuksel and Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr