U.S. crude inventories grew by more than 1 million barrels last week, missing analysts targets that projected a 2 million barrel decline.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, grew by 1.7 million barrels during the week of July 22.
The additions put total U.S. inventories at 521.1 million barrels, a historically high level for this time of the year.
That build came after industry group American Petroleum Institute said it expected a draw down of 827,000 barrels for the week, Reuters said.
Analysts had expected an inventory decline of about 2.3 million barrels, Reuters said.
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.6 million barrels per day for the week ending on July 22, a 277,000 barrels per day decline from the previous week’s average.
Refineries operated at 92.4 percent of their operable capacity last week, the EIA said.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged over 8.4 million barrels per day last week, a 303,000 barrels per day increase from the previous week.
Crude oil imports have averaged 8.2 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, up 8.7 percent year-over-year, the agency said.
Gasoline production grew to an average of about 10.1 million barrels per day last week.
Distillate fuel production declined to an average of about 4.9 million barrels per day last week.
Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 0.5 million barrels last week, “well above the upper limit of the average range,” the EIA said.
Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 0.8 million barrels last week but still stood above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year, the agency said.
Total commercial petroleum inventories added 2.7 million barrels last week.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged over 20.2 million barrels per day, up 0.7 percent year-over-year.
Motor gasoline product supplied averaged about 9.8 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, a gain of 2.6 percent from a year ago.
