“Even with higher crude oil prices passed on to consumers at the pump, summer retail gasoline prices are still expected to be the lowest in 12 years”, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski said in an e-mailed statement.
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Crude prices have nearly doubled since touching their lowest in more than a decade in early 2016 as strong demand and supply disruptions erode a glut that pulled down prices by as much as 70 percent from a mid-2014 peak.
US crude oil inventories fell by 3.2 million barrels in the week ended June 3, according to a US Energy Information Administration report released yesterday morning.
This indicates a sentiment that gasoline demand will weaken more than expected or that the crude glut will be reflected by a gasoline glut, he said.
London Brent crude for August delivery was up 9 cents at $51.53 a barrel by 0451 GMT, after settling up 89 cents on Tuesday.
United States contract West Texas Intermediate (WTI) struck $ 51.15 a barrel, a high since July.
West Texas Intermediate, the USA benchmark price for oil, declined 1.7 percent to open at $50.34 per barrel.
USA energy firms this week added rigs drilling for oil for the second time this year, energy services company Baker Hughes Inc said on Friday, as producers cautiously upped activity following months of rising prices.
Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose 1.8 million barrels, versus forecasts for a 125,000-barrel draw, the EIA data showed.
Yet analysts say the rally may entice some shale production back online, potentially damaging the prospects for a more sustained price rise. The data by the American Petroleum Institute is due out at 2030 GMT.
Nigeria’s junior oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said late Monday that his country is planning peace talks with militants in the oil-producing south to end attacks that have slashed output to 1.6 million barrels per day, well below the budgeted-for 2.2 million bpd.
In addition, oil imports in China, the world’s second biggest oil consumer after the USA, beat forecasts, with crude imports for May, 2016 up 38.7 per cent over imports in May, 2015.
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Rebel attacks on oil installations cut Nigeria’s production by 160,000 barrels a day, or 10 percent, to 1.45 million a day in May, contributing to a drop in monthly output from Opec, according to a Bloomberg News survey.
