Crude Oil Inventories in US

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Crude Oil Inventories in US See Surprise Drop

By Julianne Geiger - Feb 25, 2025, 3:46 PM CST

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 640,000 barrels for the week ending February 21. Analysts had expected a 2.3-million-barrel build.

This offsets just a small part of the 18 million barrels of builds in U.S. crude oil inventories during the last four weeks, including a 3.3 million barrel build in the week prior.




Earlier this week, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) stayed at 395.3 million barrels in the week ending February 21. Inventory levels in the SPR are still hundreds of millions shy of the levels in inventory prior to the SPR withdrawal that took place under the Biden Administration.  

At 3:28 pm ET, Brent crude was trading down $1.61 (-2.15%) on the day at $73.17—a nearly $3 per barrel dip from this time last week. The U.S. benchmark WTI was trading down on the day as well, by $1.60 (-2.26%) at $69.10—a roughly $3 per barrel decrease from last week’s level.  

Gasoline inventories rose again in the week ending February 14, by 537,000 barrels, adding onto the previous week’s 2.83-million-barrel increase. As of last week, gasoline inventories are now 1% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.


Distillate inventories saw another week of decline, dropping 1.109 million barrels in the latest week. In the week prior, distillate inventories fell 2.69 million barrels. Distillate inventories were already about 12% below the five-year average as of the week ending February 14, the latest EIA data shows.

Cushing inventories—the benchmark crude stored and traded at the key delivery point for U.S. futures contracts in Cushing, Oklahoma, fell 1.182 million barrels for the week.