Investing.com -- Oil stockpiles fell more than expected last week, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Crude oil inventories declined 3.8 million barrels. Analysts tracked by Investing.com had expected a decline of 2.8 million barrels after an increase of 500,000 the prior week.
Hurricane Delta forced production shut downs along the Gulf Coast last week. Crude Oil WTI Futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, fell about 3% in early trading on Thursday.
Oil stored at Cushing, Oklahoma, increased 2.9 million barrels compared to expectations for a build of 3.9 million barrels.
Investing.com analyst Barani Krishnan said the crude stock draw appears exaggerated by precautionary reactions related to the Hurricane Delta shutdown, though it seems the number could have been higher based on Wednesday's data from the American Petroleum Institute and whisper numbers going around the market.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve also had an outflow of 1.2 million barrels. Gasoline stockpiles fell 1.6 million barrels while distillates fell 7.2 million barrels.
"The drop in gasoline stockpiles is well within forecast, while the blow out in distillates draws is the big one for this report," Krishnan said.
"The bulls could also take some comfort in seeing the EIA paring production estimates back to 10.5 million barrels per day, below the intimidating 11 million bpd. But again, this number is distorted by Delta-related math, so I wouldn’t put too much currency on it. For the bears, we have a solid 3 million barrel build in crude stocks in Cushing, Oklahoma, at the delivery hub for contracted U.S. crude. And for what it’s worth, for a second week in a row, U.S. crude exports have fallen about half million barrels per day. If you multiply that out over the week, it totally negates the crude draw we had for last week."