U.S. crude stocks fell almost 6 million barrels last week, losing all that they added the prior week, a government report showed on Wednesday. At the same time, crude stocks at the Cushing Hub in Oklahoma fell by nearly 1 million barrels.
Cushing dropped from 34.6 million barrels on August 4 to 33.8 million barrels on August 11, a decline of 800,000 barrels of oil, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Nationally, stocks fell 5.960 million barrels during the week ended Aug. 11, after the build of 5.851 million in the prior week to Aug. 4, the EIA said.
The 33.8 million barrels held at Cushing compare to the 42.8 million reported on June 30.
The U.S. total of 439.7 million barrels on August 11 compared to 456.8 million reported by the EIA on July 21. It was a record draw of 17.049 million barrels, the result of shifts from Saudi Arabia’s move to cut another million barrels a day in its production.