By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - U.S. crude stockpiles fell sharply last week as the seasonal pickup in demand over the summer months gets underway.
West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude prices, was up $1.06 a barrel to $68.78 on the news, after settling up $1.11 at $68.83 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories fell by 5.36 million barrels for the week ended May 27, according to an estimate released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute. That compared with a draw of 439,000 million barrels reported by the API for the previous week.
The API also showed that gasoline inventories rose by about 2.51 million last week, compared with a 1.99 million draw in the prior week, and distillate stocks rose by about 1.59 million barrels.
The official government inventory report due Thursday is expected to show weekly U.S. crude supplies declined by about 2.4 million barrels last week.