US crude stockpiles jump, fuel posts surprise drawdown, EIA says

The Energy Information Administration (EIA), which released its report on Thursday, said that U.S. crude stockpiles increased more than expected, while gasoline and distillate inventories showed unexpected declines.

The EIA reported that crude inventories increased by 2.1m barrels, to 429.7m barrels during the week ending Nov. 8. This was compared to analysts' expectations based on a poll of 750,000 barrels.

The Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub for U.S. Crude Futures saw a drop of 688,000 barrels.

Exports increased by 590,000.

Brent and U.S. Crude futures edged up after the data revealed the surprise withdrawal in fuel stockpiles.

The gasoline stocks dropped by 4.4m barrels last week, to 206.9m barrels. This was in contrast with the expectation of a 600k barrel build.

After the surprise draw, U.S. futures for gasoline spiked. ?

The EIA reported that distillate stocks, which includes diesel and heating oil fell by 1.4m barrels last week, to 114.4m barrels. This was in contrast to expectations of a 200m barrel increase.

After the release of data, U.S. Heating Oil Futures briefly rose and ended up 0.4%.

The refinery crude run increased by 175,000 bpd, and the refinery utilization rate rose by 0.9 percent to 91.4%.

(source: Reuters)