WTI falls back as DoE reveals rise in weekly US oil output
US crude oil stockpiles fell sharply despite rising imports amid still high levels of refinery runs.
Yet oil futures fell back following Wednesday's reports as traders reacted to news that domestic crude production had registered a big rise.
During the week ending 11 August, commercial US crude oil inventories fell by 8.9m barrels from the previous week to reach 466.5m, according to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy's statistical arm.
In parallel, gasoline stockpiles remained unchanged last week while those of distillates increased by 0.7m barrels and were in the upper half of their average range for the time of the year.
Imports averaged more than 8.1m barrels per day during the reference week, up by 364,000 barrels per day from the previous week.
Refineries operated at 96.1% of their capacity last week.
Domestic US oil production jumped by 79,000b/d to reach 9.50 mb/d, although the bulk of that came from Alaska, where output rose 54,000 b/d, the DoE said in a separate report.
As of 16:38 BST, front month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were 0.51% weaker to $47.31 per barrel on the ICE.