Brent slumps despite US crude stockpiles draw

Front-month ICE Brent crude futures dropped by $0.61/bbl in the first hour after the official weekly oil figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) were released today.

PHOTO: Oil refinery and pipeline in the desert during sunset. Getty Images

Commercial crude oil inventories in the US dropped heavily by 12.16 million bbls to 449 million bbls in the week ending 28 June.

The stocks dropped amid higher US crude oil exports. The country's crude oil exports increased by 491,000 b/d to 4.40 million b/d on the week.

Refinery crude runs rose by 260,000 b/d as the country's refinery utilisation increased by 1.3 percentage points to 93.5% last week.

Gasoline stocks dropped by 2.21 million bbls on the week to 232 million bbls.

Distillate stocks, which include diesel and gasoil, dropped by 1.54 million bbls to 120 million bbls— the lowest in five weeks.

By Debarati Bhattacharjee

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