US oil stocks rise unexpectedly over week

Commercial oil reserves in the US (excluding the strategic reserve) for the week ended February 19 increased by 1.3 million barrels, or 0.3 percent, and reached 463 million barrels, according to the weekly review of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Report informs referring to Prime.

Analysts polled by the DailyFx portal expected a decline of 5.4 million barrels.

The country’s strategic oil reserve has not changed, remaining at last week’s level of 637.8 million barrels.

At the same time, oil reserves at the country’s largest terminal in Cushing for the current reporting week rose to 47.8 million barrels from 45 million.

Gasoline stocks in the US didn’t change over the week, remaining at the level of the previous week of 257.1 million barrels. Analysts predicted a decline of 3.1 million barrels. Distillate stocks decreased by 5 million barrels, or 3.2 percent, to 152.7 million barrels.

Oil production for the week decreased to 9.7 million barrels per day from the previous week’s level of 10.8 million barrels, which was the lowest level since August 2020.

On average, over the past four weeks, oil production in the US amounted to 10.6 million barrels per day.

Oil production in the country in 2020 averaged 11.31 million barrels per day, in 2019 - 12.248 million barrels per day.