Oil rally pauses as U.S. crude stockpiles jump; output at new 3-year high

investing.com:

Investing.com — The oil rally hit a bump on Wednesday as U.S. oil production hit new three-year highs last week and a weekly reading for crude stockpiles rose for the first time in five weeks as the peak summer driving season drew to a close.

London-traded Brent was at $91.92 per barrel by 13:45 ET (17:45 GMT), down 14 cents, or 0.2%. The global crude benchmark rose to $92.83 earlier in the day, reaching its highest since November 2022.

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude was at $88.52, down 32 cents, or 0.4%. The U.S. crude benchmark hit a 10-month high of $89.64 earlier.

Average daily oil output for last week was estimated at 12.9 million barrels, the  the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. Until a couple of months ago, crude output from the world’s largest producer of the commodity ranged between 12.1M and 12.2M barrels per day. 

Last week’s revision means U.S. oil production is now just 400,000 short of the record high of 13.1M barrels per day averaged in March 2020, just before the coronavirus outbreak which temporarily decimated energy demand.

On the inventory side, U.S. crude oil stockpiles jumped nearly 4M barrels last week and fuel inventories rose by as much or more, indicating lower demand as the summer driving season officially drew to a close.

Specifically, the U.S. crude inventory balance was higher by 3.955M barrels during the week ended September 8. Industry analysts tracked by Investing.com had expected a crude drawdown of 2.481M barrels instead for last week to add to the 6.307 million deficit in the prior week to September 1.

On the fuels side, the EIA reported a gasoline inventory increase of 5.561M. The forecast consensus was for