By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - U.S. crude stockpiles fell sharply, while the trend of increasing product supplies including gasoline stockpiles rose for a fourth straight week, according to an estimate released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute.
West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude prices, was up 0.05% to $73.16 a barrel on the news, after settling down 0.8% to $73.06 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories fell by 7.2 million barrels for the week ended June 17. That compared with a draw of 8.5 million barrels reported by the API for the previous week.
The API also showed that gasoline inventories rose by about 1.0 million last week, compared with a 2.9 million build in the prior week, and distillate stocks rose by about 1.0 million barrels.
The official government inventory report due Wednesday is expected to show weekly U.S. crude supplies declined by about 3.9 million barrels last week.