On Wednesday, December 17, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its inventory report showing that U.S. crude oil inventories decreased last week, while gasoline and distillate inventories increased.

The data showed that for the week ending December 12, U.S. crude oil inventories decreased by 1.274 million barrels to 424.417 million barrels. Analysts had expected a decrease of approximately 1.1 million barrels.

Wednesday's EIA report contrasted sharply with the inventory report released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday, which showed a decrease of 9.3 million barrels last week.

During the week, crude oil inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub decreased by 742,000 barrels to 20.86 million barrels.

Following the data release, crude oil futures gave back some of their gains but remained higher. At 0:14 Beijing time, Brent crude futures were up $1.02, or 1.73%, at $59.94 per barrel; West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up $0.93, or 1.69%, at $56.06 per barrel.

UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said: "This report is slightly bearish due to the significant increase in gasoline inventories.  It is clearly more bearish than the American Petroleum Institute report."

The EIA said that refinery crude oil processing increased by 128,000 barrels per day last week, and refinery utilization increased by 0.3 percentage points to 94.8%.

During the week, U.S. gasoline inventories increased by 4.808 million barrels to 225.627 million barrels, while analysts had expected an increase of approximately 2.1 million barrels.

Distillate fuel inventories, including diesel and heating oil, increased by 1.712 million barrels to 118.5 million barrels, while analysts had expected an increase of approximately 1.2 million barrels.

EIA data showed that U.S. crude oil production decreased by 10,000 barrels per day during the week to 13.84 million barrels per day. U.S. net crude oil imports decreased by 719,000 barrels per day to 1.86 million barrels per day. Imports were 6.53 million barrels per day, a decrease of 64,000 barrels per day; exports were 4.66 million barrels per day, an increase of 655,000 barrels per day.

A measure of demand, petroleum product supplied, decreased by 509,000 barrels per day to 20.57 million barrels per day. ​​Of this, gasoline supplied increased by 622,000 barrels per day to 9.08 million barrels per day; distillate fuel oil supplied decreased by 372,000 barrels per day to 3.79 million barrels per day.

In addition, U.S. strategic petroleum reserves increased by 249,000 barrels during the week to 412.171 million barrels.

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