The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed on Wednesday that crude inventories increased by 0.452 million barrels in the week ended February 21. Economists had forecast an advance of 2.467 million barrels.

At the same time, gasoline stocks declined by 2.691 million barrels, while analysts had expected a drop of 2.245 million barrels. Distillate stocks fell by 2.114 million barrels, while analysts had forecast a decrease of 1.713 million barrels.

Meanwhile, oil production in the U.S. was unchanged at 13.000 million barrels a day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.2 million barrels per day last week, down by 330,000 barrels per day from the previous week.