US Crude Oil Stocks Unexpectedly Rise

Crude oil inventories in the US rose by 2.415 million barrels to 420.7mllion barrels in the final week of August, contrasting sharply with market expectations that reserves would fall by 1.8 million barrels. Consistently, stocks of crude oil at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub rose by 1.59 million tonnes. Gasoline stocks fell by 3.795 million barrels, the sharpest decline since April, even though product supplied of finished motor gasoline fell by 123 thousand barrels to 9.117 million. In turn, stockpiles of distillate fuel rose by 1.681 million barrels, instead of expectations of a 0.5 million barrel drop.