The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed on Wednesday that crude inventories climbed by 7.664 million barrels in the week ended March 6. Economists had forecast an advance of 2.266 million barrels.

At the same time, gasoline stocks declined by 5.048 million barrels, while analysts had expected a drop of 2.482 million barrels. Distillate stocks fell by 6.404 million barrels, while analysts had forecast a decrease of 1.911 million barrels.

Meanwhile, oil production in the U.S. reduced by 100,000 barrels a day to 13.0000 million barrels a day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.4 million barrels per day last week, up by 174,000 thousand barrels per day from the previous week.