US commercial crude oil inventories fell 0.3% during the week ending March 8, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories declined by around 1.5 million barrels to 447 million barrels, compared to the market expectation of an increase of around 900,000 barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, which are excluded from commercial crude stocks, increased by 600,000 barrels to 361.6 million barrels last week, the data revealed.
Gasoline inventories decreased by around 5.7 million barrels to 234.1 million barrels over the same period.
- Crude production falls
EIA data showed that US crude oil production contracted by 104,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 13.53 million bpd during the week ending March 8.
US crude oil imports decreased by 1.73 million bpd to 5.49 million bpd, and crude oil exports fell by 1.49 million bpd to approximately 3.15 million bpd over the same period.
In the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on March 12, the EIA predicted that crude oil output in the country would reach an average of 13.19 million bpd this year.
Next year, crude oil output in the country is expected to reach 13.65 million bpd.
By Firdevs Yuksel
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr