Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil stockpiles tumbled in the just-ended week, after surging the prior week, while inventories of top fuel product gasoline rose, according to a report by petroleum industry group API.
The U.S. crude inventory balance possibly dipped by 5.25M barrels during the week ended Sept. 15, according to the API, or American Petroleum Institute.
The petroleum industry group reported a crude build of 1.174M barrels in the prior week to Sept. 8.
The API numbers serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, on Wednesday.
Consistent with the tumble in crude stockpiles, the API cited a drop of 2.564M barrels last week at the Cushing, Oklahoma hub that serves as a central delivery and storage point for U.S. crude. In the prior week, the API reported a Cushing deficit of 2.417M barrels.
On the fuels side, API reported an addition of 0.732M barrels in gasoline and a decline of 0.258M in distillates. In the previous week, it noted a 4.210M barrel build for gasoline and a 2.592M gain for distillates.
EIA report awaited
With the API report out, anticipation builds on what the EIA will cite for last week’s oil supply-demand in the United States, and how that will impact crude prices that have risen almost 15% over the past three weeks on the back of Saudi-Russian production squeezes.
For last week, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile build of 0.25 million barrels, versus the 3.954M barrel rise reported during the week to Sept 8.
On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for a build of 1.1M barrels over the 5.560M-barrel gain in the previous week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.
With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a climb of 1.05M barrels versus the prior week’s build of 3.931M. Distillates are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets.