Commercial crude oil inventories in the United States, not considering those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), went down by 3.34 million barrels to 433.6 million barrels in the week ending March 21, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) stated in its report published on Wednesday.
Oil refinery inputs averaged 15.8 million barrels per day (bpd) during the same week, decreasing by 87,000 bpd compared to the previous week's average. Refineries operated at 87% of their operable capacity. Meanwhile, gasoline production decreased and averaged 4.5 million bpd.
Crude oil imports went up by 810,000 bpd week-on-week to average 6.2 million bpd. Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 3.2 million barrels last week.
