Brent rises amid US crude stock drop

The front-month ICE Brent crude contract rose by $0.79/bbl in the first hour after the official weekly oil figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) were released today.

PHOTO: An oil pumpjack with a refinery in the background. Getty Images

Commercial crude oil inventories in the US dropped by 3.73 million bbls to 429 million bbls in the week ending 26 July – the lowest since February.

The stocks fell amid higher refinery capacity utilisation.

Refinery crude runs rose by 252,000 b/d as the country's refinery utilisation increased by 0.4 percentage points to 90.5% last week.

Gasoline stocks rose by 1.34 million bbls on the week to 225 million bbls.

Distillate stocks, which include diesel and gasoil, rose by 949,000 bbls to 128 million bbls.

By Debarati Bhattacharjee

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