US weekly oil stockpiles build more quickly than expected

US crude oil stockpiles jumped last week, easily surpassing analysts' forecasts.

Over the seven days ending on 23 November, commercial crude oil inventories in the States grew by 3.6m barrels from the week before (consensus: 769,000 barrels), to reach 450.5m barrels, the Energy Information Administration said, and were about 7% above their five-year average.

In parallel, gasoline inventories slipped by 0.8m barrels to stand roughly 5% above their five-year average while those of distillates rose by 2.6m barrels.

However, the latter were approximately 6% below their five-year average.

Net imports meanwhile rose by just 135,000 b/d to 5.720m.

Domestic production meanwhile was little changed at 11.7m b/d, while refinery activity increased to 95.6% of capacity.

Reacting to Wednesday's figures, as of 1624 GMT, front month Brent crude oil futures were slipping 1.023% to $59.60 a barrel on the ICE.