Oil prices brent wti fall even as the American Petroleum Institute estimated U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 7.14 million barrels in the week ending September 11. Julianne Geiger noted the figures after 4:13 pm ET pricing showed Brent at $108.68 and WTI at $107.38.
Julianne Geiger on 7.14 million barrels
7.14 million barrels is a sharp reversal from the 300,000-barrel decline in the prior week, and it left U.S. crude inventories up nearly 10 million barrels for the year under API data. For traders, that is the number that hits the balance between supply and demand first, before the weekly price screen catches up.
41 million barrels of commercial crude inventories, excluding the SPR, have been lost over the last 22 weeks, so the latest build does not erase the broader drawdown trend. Brent was up 2.84% on the day at $108.68, while WTI rose 3.70% to $107.38, with both benchmarks still trading well above the prior week’s levels.
SPR draws and Cushing
400,000 barrels left the SPR in the same report week, bringing the reserve to 285 million barrels and leaving it 446 million barrels shy of maximum capacity. The SPR still sits above the 250 million to 300 million barrel operating minimum, which keeps the reserve in a range where further draws can still lean on commercial supply balances.
246,000 barrels came out of Cushing even as headline U.S. crude stocks rose, and that split matters because Cushing is the delivery hub for WTI Crude futures. Gasoline inventories added 1.46 million barrels and distillate stocks gained 1.61 million barrels, leaving those products below the five-year averages shown in the latest EIA data by 5% and 13%.
US production and the next read
13.947 million bpd in U.S. production for the week ending Sept. 4, up from 13.862 million bpd the week before and 452,000 bpd above a year earlier, adds another layer to the supply picture. Julianne Geiger’s read leaves traders focused on the same question the data cannot settle: what pushed inventories up by 7.14 million barrels even as Cushing fell and the SPR kept draining.
