US crude oil stockpiles and refinery activity decrease, says DoE

US crude oil stockpiles continued to drop even as refinery activity slowed, amid a substantial reduction in domestic oil output.

During the week ending on 13 October, commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 5.7m barrels to reach 456.5m barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy's statistical arm.

That came as domestic US oil output slumped from 9.48m b/d to 8.41m b/d.

Also on the supply side, crude oil imports decreased by 134,000 b/d from the previous week to hit an average of 7.5m b/d.

In parallel, gasoline stockpiles rose by 0.9m barrels, even as the refinery activity rate dropped from 89.2% in the week before to 84.5%.

Inventories of distillates also rose, by by 0.5m barrels.

Liam Peach at Capital Economics attributed the reduction in production levels in the lower 48 states to the impact of hurricane Nate, adding that the figures likely also reflected adjustments to the data for earlier in the same month.

As of 1639 BST Brent futures dropped 1.2% to 57.47