Weekly US crude oil stockpiles slip again, DoE says

US crude oil stockpiles shrank last week as refinery activity continued to recover following recent hurricanes.

During the week ending September 22, US commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 1.8m barrels from the previous week to reach 471m barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy´s statistical arm.

In parallel, gasoline stockpiles increased by 1.1m barrels last week, while those of distillates decreased by 0.8m barrels, with the latter settling in the lower half of their average range for that time of year.

Imports ran at an average of 7.4m barrels per day over the reference week, which was 59,000 barrels per day more than during the previous five-day stretch.

Meanwhile, refineries operated at 88.6% of their operable capacity, up from 88.3% in the week before.

Nevertheless, domestic production increased by 37,000 b/d to 9.55m b/d.

As of 15:49 BST, front month Brent crude oil futures were falling by 0.5% to $58.13 per barrel on the ICE, while those of WTI Crude Futures increased by 0.5% to $52.12 per barrel.