Investing.com — U.S. crude oil futures fell in post-settlement trading Tuesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported domestic crude stocks unexpectedly jumped last week, muddying expectations for a seasonal pick up in energy demand over the summer.
, the U.S. benchmark, traded at $72.93 a barrel following the report after settling down 1.3% at $73.25 a barrel.
increased by about 4.0 million barrels for the week ended May. 29, compared with a draw of 6.5M barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a decrease of 1.9M barrels.
Gasoline stockpiles rose by 4.03M barrels, while distillate inventories — the class of fuels that includes diesel and — increased by 2.0M barrels.
The build in both crude and product followed data in the prior week that showed a fall in gasoline demand by 2% week-on-week even as refinery activity hit multi-month highs
The report is due Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT).
Crude futures settled lower earlier Tuesday, as OPEC+ signaled it will begin tapering off its production cuts this year just as demand worries intensified following weak data from major oil consumer China.