Oil futures little changes on mixed API report as weekly gasoline stocks climb

Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures were slightly lower in post-settlement trading Tuesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported a mixed report amid a smaller than expected build in weekly domestic crude stocks, but an upside surprise in gasoline stocks.

Crude Oil WTI Futures , the U.S. benchmark, traded at $73.03 a barrel following the report after settling up 0.36% at $73.20 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories increased by about 180,000 barrels for the week ended Aug. 2, compared with a draw of 4.5M barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a increase of 850,000 barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles rose by 3.31M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- increased by 1.22M barrels.

The build in product inventories comes as the peak summer demand nears the end, with refiners usually slowing down for maintenance in the fall.

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

Oil prices settled higher Tuesday, on fears of potential supply disruptions as markets braced for a potential retaliation from Iran against Israel following the recent killing of an Hamas leader in Tehran.

Source: Investing.com