Investing.com – Crude oil prices settled lower on Wednesday after data showed crude supplies rose while production jumped to a record all-time high last week offsetting a larger-than-expected draw in refineries.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for December delivery fell by 39 cents to settle at $56.81 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent lost 33 cents to trade at $63.36 a barrel.
Crude oil settled lower for the second day in row as concerns over a surge in US production weighed on upside while a mixed report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showing crude stockpiles rose while gasoline and distillate supplies fell weighed on sentiment.
Preliminary U.S. production figures showed weekly output rose 0.7% to an all-time high of 9.62 million barrels per day, the EIA said, that was the highest U.S. output since June 2015.
Inventories of U.S. crude rose by roughly 2.2 million barrels for the week ended Nov. 4, missing expectations of a draw of 2.8m barrels.
Gasoline inventories – one of the products that crude is refined into – fell by 3.3 million barrels, confounding expectations for a draw of 1.9 million barrels while supplies of distillate – the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil – fell by about 3.4 million barrels, a steeper draw than the expected decline of 1.4 million barrels.
The negative day for crude prices came as China’s October oil imports fell to 7.3 million barrels per day from about 9 million barrels per day in September, according to data from the General Administration of Customs on Wednesday.
The ramp up in U.S. crude output comes a day after Opec, its 2017 World Oil Outlook, revised upwards North America shale oil to 5.1 million barrels per day (bpd) from 4.1 million bpd, citing the recent rally in crude prices as one of the catalysts to drive up shale output.