BREAKING: OIL ticks lower after DOE report

US Department of Energy (DOE) issued an official, weekly report on US oil inventories today at 3:30 pm GMT. Report was expected to show a build in crude oil inventories, as well as declines in gasoline and distillate stockpiles. Those expectations were somewhat confirmed by API reading yesterday. However, API data confirmed the direction, but scale of the changes differed significantly.

Actual report showed a bigger-than-expected build in US oil inventories, but at the same time much smaller than suggested by API data. Situation with gasoline was similar - stockpiles dropped more than expected but less than suggested by API. Distillate inventories data showed smaller than expected drop and came in-line with yesterday's API report.

DOE report on US oil inventories

• Oil inventories: +4.20 mb vs +2.7 mb expected (API: +8.43 mb)
• Gasoline inventories: -2.83 mb vs -1.5 mb expected (API: -3.27 mb)
• Distillate inventories: -0.51 mb vs -2.1 mb expected (API: -0.52 mb)

Brent (OIL) ticked lower following release of DOE report. Price is breaking back below the $82.70 price zone. Source: xStation5