US oil futures in slight boost after API shows larger decline in crude stocks

Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures received a slight boost 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, traded at $75.89 a barrel following the report after settling down 2.4%% at $75.53 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories decreased by about 3.4M barrels for the week ended Aug. 23, compared with a build of 347,000 barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a decline of about 3M barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles fell by about 1.9M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- fell by 1.4M barrels.

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

Source: Investing.com