Brent falls despite significant US crude stock draw

Front-month ICE Brent crude futures declined by $1.19/bbl in the half hour after official weekly figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) were released this afternoon.

PHOTO: Oil refinery complex with big American flag displayed, and fumes coming out from the chimney. Getty Images

Commercial US crude oil stocks fell by 5.18 million bbls in the week to 2 December. The crude stocks measured 413.89 million bbls after being drawn for a fourth consecutive week.

But the draw was slightly smaller than 6.4 million-bbl decline estimated by the American Petroleum Institute a day earlier.

Releases from Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPRs) accelerated to 2.09 million bbls in the week, leaving 387 million bbls in SPR storage.

US refinery utilisation rose by 0.3 percentage points to a multi-week high of 95.5%.

By Nithin Chandran

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