US commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 1.2% during the week ending Dec. 2, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) late on Wednesday.
Inventories declined by around 5.2 million barrels to 413.9 million barrels, exceeding the market expectation of a decrease of around 3.9 million barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, excluded from commercial crude stocks, also fell by 2.1 million barrels to 387 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories, however, increased by 5.3 million barrels to 219.1 million barrels over the same period.
- Crude production increases
EIA data showed that US crude oil imports fell by 24,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 6.12 million bpd during the week ending Dec. 2, while crude oil exports declined by 1.5 million bpd to about 3.43 million bpd.
US crude oil production, meanwhile, decreased by 106,000 bpd to approximately 12.65 million bpd over the same period.
In the December Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the EIA forecasted that crude oil output in the US would average 11.87 million bpd in 2022, up from 11.25 million bpd in 2021.
Crude oil output in the country in 2023 is forecast to reach 12.34 million bpd.
By Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency