Crude oil inventories and production in the U.S. increased last week, the country's Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday.
Commercial crude oil stocks rose by 1.9 million barrels, or 0.4 percent, to 459 million barrels for the week ending Nov. 10, the EIA said. This was against market expectations of a decline of 2.2 percent.
This marked the third increase in U.S. crude inventories in the past four weeks. Crude oil inventories rose by 2.2 million barrels the previous week.
'The increase in crude stocks was driven by a combination of another rise in U.S. production, to a new weekly record, and an increase in net imports,' Thomas Pugh, a commodities economist at London-based Capital Economics, said in a note.
Crude oil production in the U.S. continued to increase last week, rising by 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 9.64 million bpd for the week ending Nov. 10, the EIA said.
This was the fourth consecutive week that crude production rose in the country.
Imports of crude oil also rose by 521,000 bpd to 7.9 million bpd for the week ending Nov. 10, according to the EIA data.
By Ovunc Kutlu in New York
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr