Commercial crude oil inventories in the US increased by 0.1% for the week ending Oct. 2, according the Energy Information Administration (EIA) Short-Term Energy Outlook forecast for October on Wednesday.
Inventories rose by 500,000 barrels to 492.9 million barrels against the market expectation of a 400,000-barrel rise.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are not included in the commercial crude stocks, fell to 642 million barrels for the week ending Oct. 2, the data showed.
Gasoline inventories also dropped by 1.4 million barrels, or 0.6%, to 226.7 million barrels over that period.
- Crude production increases
According to the EIA data, US crude oil imports increased by 610,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 5.73 million bpd for the week ending Oct. 2, while crude oil exports saw a decrease of 853,000 bpd to 2.66 million bpd.
The data showed that US crude oil production expanded by 316,000 bpd to approximately 11.46 million bpd during the same period.
US crude output is now estimated to be 11.2 million bpd in 2020 and 11.1 million bpd in 2021, down from 12.2 million bpd in 2019, according to the EIA's forecast.
In November 2018, the US first surpassed Saudi Arabia, and then Russia to become the world's biggest crude oil producer.
By Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency