Oil Bulls Balk At Surprise Crude Oil Inventory Build

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 4.287 million barrels in the week ending May 9—a shock after analysts had estimated a 2.4-million-barrel draw. The API reported a 4.49 million barrel inventory decrease in the prior week. So far this year, crude oil inventories are up more than 23 million barrels, according to Oilprice calculations of API data.

Earlier this week, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)…