US Oil Inventories Jump as Cushing Stocks Continue to Fall
US oil inventories saw a significant jump last week, rising by 7.14 million barrels according to data from the American Petroleum Institute (API). This increase comes on the heels of a 300,000-barrel decline in the previous week.
The API reported that commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), have decreased by over 41 million barrels over the past 22 weeks. However, US crude oil inventories as a whole are up nearly 10 million barrels for the year, with draws from the SPR helping to keep them in check.
For the week ending September 11, another 400,000 barrels left the SPR, bringing the total inventory held in the reserve to 285 million barrels. This level is still far below the maximum capacity of 731 million barrels and raises concerns about the operational efficiency of the reserve if inventories fall further.
In other news, US oil production rose to 13.947 million barrels per day (bpd) for the week ending September 4, up from 13.862 bpd in the previous week and 452,000 bpd higher than a year ago.