The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a small inventory build in crude oil that was just enough to keep the market from panicking over dwindling inventories. This week, the API estimated the inventory build for crude oil to be 655,000 barrels . U.S. crude inventories are now 60 million barrels below where they were at the beginning of the year. Analyst expectations for the week were for a build of 1.550-million barrels for the week. In the previous week, the API reported a draw in oil inventories of 2.485-million barrels , compared to the 1.90-million-barrel build that analysts had predicted. Oil prices had been trading up just slightly on Tuesday in the runup to the data release, with WTI rising to $81 and Brent trading at $82.58 per barrel. WTI was down $3 week on week at 1:44 p.m. EST, while Brent was down $2 per barrel on the […]