U.S. crude inventories up by 8.4 million barrels last week: EIA

U.S. crude stockpiles jumped by more than eight million barrels last week, the government-run Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said Thursday, reporting for a second week in a row a multi-million barrel build that bucked market expectations for a drop.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 8.408M barrels for the week ended Jan. 13, the EIA said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report, versus expectations for a draw of 0.593M barrels. In the previous week to Jan. 6, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department reported a crude build of 18.962M barrels. The EIA has reported a total crude build of almost 30 million barrels over the past four weeks.

The latest increase was even more than that suggested by industry group American Petroleum Institute, or API, in its own weekly inventory report on Wednesday, The API cited a crude stockpile growth of 7.6M barrels for the week ended Jan. 6, up from a rise of 14.865M barrels during the week to Jan. 6.

On the gasoline inventory front, the EIA reported a rise of 3.483M barrels versus expectations for a build of 2.529M and against the previous week’s growth of 4.114M.

With distillate stockpiles, the EIA cited a drop of 1.939M barrels versus the forecast build of 122,000 barrels and against the previous week’s slide of 1.069M.