U.S. crude inventories continue to increase

Source: Xinhua | 2018-03-08

U.S. crude oil inventories increased in the week ending March 2, and refineries operated at 88 percent of their operable capacity, or 53,000 barrels per day more than the previous week's average, said the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Wednesday.

According to the Weekly Petroleum Status Report by the EIA, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, of the week ending March 2 increased by 2.4 million barrels from the previous week.

At 425.9 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are in the lower half of the average range for this time.

Total products supplied over the past four-week period averaged 20.3 million barrels per day, up by 3.4 percent from the same period last year.

Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.0 million barrels per day, up by 3.3 percent from the same period last year.