By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - U.S. crude stockpiles fell last week, while gasoline inventories snapped a five weeks of gains pointing to underlying strength in the demand outlook at a time when uncertainty over supply lingers following the botched OPEC+ meeting.
West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude prices pared losses, down 1.59% to $72.20 a barrel on the news, after settling down $1.17 to $72.20 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories fell by 8.0 million barrels for the week ended July 1. That compared with a draw of 8.2 million barrels reported by the API for the previous week.
The API also showed that gasoline inventories fell by about 2.7 million last week, compared with a 1.3 million draw in the prior week, and distillate stocks rose by about 1.1 million barrels.
The official government inventory report due Wednesday is expected to show weekly U.S. crude supplies declined by about 4.0 million barrels last week.