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US Inventories of Crude Oil, Gasoline Plunge Last Week

Posted on: Friday, 9 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

US inventories of crude oil, gasoline plunge last week

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- US inventories of commercial crude oil and gasoline plunged last week after Hurricane Katrina disrupted oil production along Gulf of Mexico, the Energy Department reported Thursday in its weekly survey.

In the week ending Sept. 2, the nation's commercial crude oil reserve slumped by 6.4 million barrels to 315 million barrels, according to the department.

The department said that the figure for last week was in line with analysts' forecasts and still remained "well above the upper end of the average range for this time of year."

At the same time, gasoline stockpiles fell by 4.3 million barrels to 190.1 million, below the bottom end of the average range. That decline was much better than the 6.2 million-barrel drop expected by the markets.

The supply of distillate fuel, including diesel and heating oil, decreased by 800,000 barrels to 134.4 million last week. Analysts had been expecting a drop of 2.6 million barrels.

A parallel survey by the private American Petroleum Institute found that US commercial crude oil inventories dived by 14.3 million barrels last week. Gasoline stocks fell by 4.2 million barrels and distillate supplies were down by 1.7 million barrels, according to the institute.

The figures for petroleum products do not include oil held in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which currently holds oil of more than 700 million barrels.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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