By Anthony Harrup

U.S. crude oil inventories fell more than expected last week as production and refinery runs dropped amid severe winter weather across much of the U.S., according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Commercial crude-oil stocks excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by 9.2 million barrels to 420.7 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 19, and were about 5% below the five-year average for the time of year, the EIA said. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted crude stockpiles would fall by 1.4 million barrels.

Storage in the SPR rose by 920,000 barrels to 356.5 million barrels, the EIA said.

Oil stored at Cushing, Okla., the Nymex delivery hub, fell by 2 million barrels to 30.1 million. Refineries reduced their capacity use to 85.5% from 92.6% the week before. Expectations were for refinery runs to be down by 0.6 percentage point from the previous week.

The EIA estimated that U.S. oil production fell by 1 million barrels a day to 12.3 million barrels a day.

Last week's winter storm shut in as much as 700,000 barrels-a-day of oil production in North Dakota, according to the state's pipeline authority. That has been gradually recovering, and the authority said oil output in the state was down by 170,000 to 220,000 barrels a day as of Wednesday.

U.S. crude exports fell by 595,000 barrels a day to 4.4 million barrels a day, and crude imports fell by 1.8 million barrels a day to 5.6 million barrels a day.

Oil futures extended gains following the report. West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery was up 1.3% at $75.32 a barrel and international benchmark Brent was 0.9% higher at $80.24 a barrel.

U.S. gasoline stockpiles rose by 4.9 million barrels last week to 253 million barrels against expectations of a 1.5 million-barrel build. Gasoline inventories are about 1% above the five-year average, the EIA said.

Distillate stocks, mostly diesel, were down by 1.4 million barrels at 133.3 million barrels and were 4% below the five-year average. Expectations were for inventories of distillate fuels to decline by 700,000 barrels.

Gasoline demand fell by 388,000 barrels a day from the previous week to 7.9 million barrels a day, and distillates demand rose by 139,000 barrels a day to 3.8 million barrels a day, according to the EIA.

 
Change in U.S. oil inventories for the week ended Jan. 19: 
 
                   Crude       Gasoline      Distillates         Refinery Use 
EIA data:          -9.2           4.9           -1.4                 -7.1 
Forecast:          -1.4           1.5           -0.7                 -0.6 
 

Note: Numbers in millions of barrels, with the exception of refinery use, which is in percentage points.

Write to Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 24, 2024 11:44 ET (16:44 GMT)