Houston (US), October 6: The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported an increase of 951,000 barrels of crude oil in U.S. inventories for the week ending Oct. 1.
Analysts had expected a loss of about 300,000 barrels for the week.
The API reported a surge of 4.127 million barrels in the previous week.
Oil prices extended gains on Tuesday after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, widely known as OPEC+, decided to gradually expand its oil production.
The West Texas Intermediate for November delivery added 1.31 U.S. dollars, or 1.7 percent, to settle at 78.93 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after jumping 2.3 percent on Monday.
The U.S. crude benchmark saw its highest front-month contract finish since late October 2014, while Brent futures climbed to a three-year high, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The API reports inventory levels of U.S. crude oil, gasoline and distillates stocks. The figure shows how much oil and product is available in storage and thus gives an overview of U.S. petroleum demand.
Source: Xinhua
