US oil futures off lows after API inventory shows surprise decline in crude stocks

Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures were higher in post-settlement trading Wednesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported an unexpectedly decrease in weekly domestic crude stocks.

Crude Oil WTI Futures , the U.S. benchmark, recently traded at $70.67 a barrel following the report after settling down 0.3% at $70.39 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories decreased by about 10.9 million barrels for the week ended Oct. 11, compared with a build of 10.9M barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a build of about 3.2M barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles fell by about 5.9M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- declined by 2.7M barrels.

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

Source: Investing.com