Commercial crude oil inventories in the US decreased by 0.4 million barrels in the week ending October 15, the weekly report published by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed on Wednesday. This reading came in much lower than the market expectation for an inventory build of 1.8 million barrels.

Market reaction

Crude oil prices started to edge higher after this report. The barrel of West Texas Intermediate, which touched a daily low of $80.77 earlier in the session, was last seen trading at $82.45, where it was still down 0.7% on the day.

Additional takeaways

"Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 5.4 million barrels last week and are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year."

"US crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.0 million barrels per day during the week ending October 15, 2021."

"US crude oil imports averaged 5.8 million barrels per day last week, down by 169,000 barrels per day from the previous week."

"Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.9 million barrels a day, up by 14.0% from the same period last year."