U.S. commercial crude oil stocks drew lower by 3.7 million barrels during the reporting week ended November 28, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data released Wednesday. Analysts that Platts surveyed Monday had been expecting a 380,000-barrel increase. By region, the biggest crude oil draw occurred on the U.S. West Coast (USWC), where stocks fell 1.6 million barrels to 52.9 million barrels. However, analysts tend to downplay the significance of USWC stockpile movements because the region is mostly disconnected from Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) crude oil contract. Cushing crude oil stocks fell 694,000 barrels to 23.9 million barrels after rising three weeks in a row. The storage hub’s stocks fell below 18 million barrels this summer before starting to track higher. On the […]