The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a surprise build this week for crude oil of 2.165 million barrels, while analysts predicted a draw of 467,000 barrels. The build comes as the Department of Energy released 4.6 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves in Week Ending July 29, to 469.9 million barrels. U.S. crude inventories have shed some 63 million barrels since the start of 2021, with a 40,000 barrel loss since the start of 2020, according to API data. In the week prior, the API reported a large draw in crude oil inventories of 4.037 million barrels after analysts had predicted a smaller draw of 1.121 million barrels. WTI was trading up on Tuesday as OPEC+ revised down its estimate of the crude surplus in the global market for this year. WTI was trading up 1.25% on the day at 2:16 p.m. ET in the runup to the […]