In its weekly petroleum report for the week ending April 26, the Energy Information Administration announced that the commercial crude oil inventories in the U.S. increased by 9.9 million barrels. With the initial market reaction, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate dropped to a session low of $63.20.
Further details of the report revealed that gasoline production and distillate fuel production both increased in the same period while refineries operated at 89.2% of capacity. “Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.2 million barrels per day, up by 0.5% from the same period last year,” the publication read.