Crude oil futures pare weekly decline after bullish US supply data

Both West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude benchmarks gained ground on Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported a smaller-than-expected build in US crude inventories last week, while refined products dropped.

US crude for settlement in December added 1.71% to trade at $78.51 per barrel at 15:42 GMT on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices ranged between $78.78 and $76.46 during the day. The contract declined by 2.02% on Tuesday to $77.19, having earlier fallen to $75.84 – the lowest since October 2011, and is down 2.5% so far this week.

Meanwhile on the ICE, Brent for settlement in the same month rose 1.01% to trade at $83.66 a barrel. The European benchmark crude slid to $81.63 earlier in the session, the weakest since October 21st 2010, after it fell 2.31% on Tuesday to $82.82. Brent traded at a premium of $5.15 to its US counterpart compared to yesterday’s settlement at $5.63.

The Energy Information Administration reported that US crude oil stockpiles rose by 0.5 million barrels in the seven days through October 31st to 380.2 million barrels. Although this was the fifth straight weekly increase, it outperformed analysts projections for a jump of 2.35 million barrels. Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the biggest US storage hub and delivery point for NYMEX-traded contracts, slid to 20.8 million barrels from 21.4 million a week earlier.

US crude production inched up to 8.972 million barrels per day, up from 8.970 million bpd a week earlier, which was the highest on record since January 1983. US crude imports slid to 6.675 million bpd last week from 7.101 million during the previous seven days. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 7.248 million barrels per day, 4.4% below the same four-week period last year.

Refineries utilization rate picked up to 88.4% from 86.6% a week earlier. Both motor gasoline and distillate fuel output increased and averaged 9.7 million and 4.6 million barrels per day, respectively.

Motor gasoline inventories fell by 1.4 million barrels to 201.8 million, exceeding analysts expectations for a 0.6-million decline. Distillate fuel stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, decreased by 0.7 million barrels to 119.7 million, compared to an anticipated 2.2-million-bpd drop.