Oil inventories near breaking point as American Petroleum Institute reports 13 million barrel build

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated on Tuesday another large crude oil inventory build of 13.226 million barrels for the week ending April 17.

Tuesday’s inventory build was smaller than the expected 15.15 million barrels.

In the previous week, the API estimated a large build in crude oil inventories of 13.134 million barrels, while the EIA’s estimates were for a build of 19.2 million barrels for that week.

Oil prices were trading down on Tuesday afternoon prior to the API’s data release, although up considerably from Monday when WTI was trading in negative numbers, as was the May 2020 futures contract.

At 4:25 pm EDT on Tuesday the WTI benchmark was trading down on the day by $7.32 (-35.83%) at $13.11—down roughly $7 per barrel week over week. The price of a Brent barrel was also trading down on Tuesday, by $5.72 (-22.37%), at $19.85—down nearly $10 week on week.

The API reported a build of 3.435 million barrels of gasoline for week ending April 17, after last week’s 2.226-million-barrel build. This week’s build compares to analyst expectations for a larger 3.578-million-barrel build for the week.

Distillate inventories were up by 7.639 million barrels for the week, compared to last week’s 5.640-barrel build, while Cushing inventories saw a large gain of 4.913 million barrels.

US crude oil production as estimated by the Energy Information Administration showed that production for the week ending April 10 fell to 12.3 million bpd—down 100,000 bpd for the week, and down 800,000 from its high.

WTI was trading at $11.87, while Brent slipped to $17.64, as of 8:00 GMT on Wednesday.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com