US oil futures fall after API experiences smaller decline in crude inventories

Investing.com — U.S. crude oil futures fell in post-settlement buying and selling Tuesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported a smaller-than-expected decline in weekly home crude stockpiles.

Crude Oil WTI Futures, the U.S. benchmark, lately traded at $76.91 a barrel following the report after settling down 1.7% at $77.50 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories fell by about 2.6 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 10, in contrast with a draw of 4M barrels reported by the API for the earlier week. Economists had been anticipating a draw of three.5M barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles elevated by about 5.4M barrels, whereas distillate inventories — the category of fuels that features diesel and heating oil — climbed by 4.9M barrels.

The official authorities stock report is due Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET (1530 GMT).