US commercial crude oil inventories fell by 0.7% in the week ended Oct. 16, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories decreased by about 3.1 million barrels to 412.5 million barrels, while market expectations had pointed to a decrease of around 100,000 barrels.
Strategic petroleum reserves, excluded from commercial crude stocks, decreased by about 300,000 barrels to 282.7 million barrels.
Over the same period, gasoline inventories fell by approximately 3 million barrels to 205.3 million barrels.
– US crude oil production falls
EIA data showed that US crude oil production decreased by 410,000 barrels per day (bpd) to approximately 13.27 million bpd in the week ended Oct. 16.
US crude oil imports fell by 291,000 bpd to 5.75 million bpd and exports decreased by 1.12 million bpd to 3.44 million bpd over the same period.
In its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) released on Oct. 6, the EIA forecast that US crude oil production would average 13.87 million bpd this year and 14.3 million bpd next year.