US commercial crude oil inventories fell by 3.1 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 16, the US Energy Information Administration said, bringing stocks to 412.5 million barrels.
Commercial stocks stood 10.3 million barrels below the same week a year earlier, a decline of 2.4%. Gasoline inventories also fell during the week, while distillate fuel stocks increased, the agency said.
The weekly decline in commercial crude inventories was 0.7%. These stocks exclude oil held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the federal government's emergency oil stockpile.
The reserve held 282.7 million barrels, down 0.3 million barrels, or 0.1%, from the previous week. It was 125.9 million barrels below its level a year earlier, a decline of 30.8%, the agency said.
Combined commercial and reserve crude stocks fell 3.4 million barrels to 695.2 million barrels during the week. That was a weekly decline of 0.5% and a decrease of 136.2 million barrels, or 16.4%, from a year earlier.
Gasoline inventories dropped 3 million barrels, or 1.4%, to 205.3 million barrels. They were 11.4 million barrels below the year-earlier level, a decline of 5.2%, the agency said.
Distillate fuel inventories rose 1.7 million barrels, or 1.6%, to 104.3 million barrels. Despite the weekly increase, stocks remained 11.3 million barrels, or 9.7%, below their level a year earlier.
Domestic crude production averaged 13.27 million barrels a day, down from 13.68 million the previous week, the agency said. Output averaged 13.63 million barrels a day in the same week a year earlier.
Refineries processed 16.65 million barrels of crude a day, up from 16.62 million the previous week. Their crude input averaged 15.73 million barrels a day a year earlier, the agency said.
Net crude imports, including those for the reserve, averaged 2.32 million barrels a day. That compared with 1.48 million the previous week and 1.72 million a year earlier.
Jet fuel inventories fell 0.2 million barrels to 42.6 million barrels, while propane and propylene stocks declined 0.5 million to 105.8 million barrels. Jet fuel stocks were down 0.8% from a year earlier, while propane and propylene stocks were up 2.6%.
Total petroleum stocks, including the reserve, fell 8.8 million barrels to 1,498.2 million barrels. They were down 0.6% for the week and 11.5% from a year earlier, the agency said.
Dated daily spot prices for US benchmark West Texas Intermediate and European benchmark Brent were unavailable in the supplied FRED figures. Both price entries had unusable dates, and neither included a week-earlier comparison.
