Oil futures little changed after API report shows larger-than expected crude draw

Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures were little changed in post-settlement trading Tuesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported a larger-than-expected decline in weekly domestic crude stocks.

Crude Oil WTI Futures , the U.S. benchmark, recently traded at $71.50 a barrel following the report after settling up 1.7% at $71.56 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories decreased by about 4.3 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 20, compared with a build of 2M barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a decline of about 1.1M barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles fell by about 3.4M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- declined by 1.1M barrels.

The official government inventory report is due Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT).

Source: Investing.com