Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil inventories jumped almost three times to above expectations last week while gasoline and distillate drawdowns came in below forecast levels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its weekly inventory report which drove oil prices sharply lower.
Crude inventories jumped by 3.925 million barrels during the week to Nov. 4, against expectations for a build of 1.36M barrels, the EIA reported. In the previous week to Oct. 28, crude inventories saw a drop of 3.115M in stockpiles
Distillate stockpiles fell by 0.521M barrels last week versus a forecast drop of 0.8M. In the previous week, distillates saw a build of 0.427M.
Gasoline inventories, meanwhile, dropped by 0.899M barrels, against expectations for a draw of 1.08M barrels, the EIA said. In the previous week, gasoline saw a drop of 1.257M in stockpiles.
Total U.S. gasoline consumption for last week was impressive at 9.011M barrels per day, versus the previous week’s 8.66M bpd.
But other key statistics like crude exports and production were disappointing, noted Investing.com analyst Barani Krishnan.
“Except for the weekly gasoline drawdown and total gasoline consumption at above 9 million barrels per day, this report is leaning bearish,” Krishnan said.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude, and London-traded Brent, the global benchmark for oil, were both down about 2% each after the release of the EIA inventory data, extending their losses for a third straight day.
Krishnan said crude exports have stabilized at around 3.5M barrels per day from the 5M bpd peak of two weeks ago, and SPR withdrawals appeared to be their last gasp of around 3M barrels per week.
U.S. crude production, meanwhile, has jumped to 12.1M bpd, up 200,000 from the previous week, he noted.
“If that’s not enough, you have the head of IEA coming out, saying something totally logical, which the oil bull has been blissfully ignoring: If oil gets to $100, forget about keeping inflation down. Energy is into every economic activity. How people can’t fathom that is a real mystery, when they want high energy prices and inflation low enough for the Federal Reserve to go easy on rates; totally mind-boggling.”
Faith Birol, executive director at the Paris-based IEA, or International Energy Agency, said oil prices flirting with $100 per barrel “are a real risk to the global economy”.
“OPEC+ production cuts could push inflation even higher and weaken the global economy,” Birol added.