US crude oil stockpiles rose sharply over the past week, with petrol supplies also higher, government and private surveys showed today.
The US Department of Energy said crude oil inventories for the week ending April 29 jumped 2.6 millions barrels to stand at 327 million. An even sharper rise was seen by the American Petroleum Institute, which said crude supplied jumped 10.18 million barrels to 334.83 million.
Petrol supplies rose 2.2 million barrels to 213.5 million, according to the DoE. API figures showed a smaller increase of 649,000 barrels to 213.76 million.
Wall Street analysts had been expecting an increase of 1.25 million to 1.5 million barrels of crude oil and between 750,000 and 875,000 barrels of petrol.
Despite the sharp inventory rises, crude oil futures were unchanged at $49.50 a barrel this afternoon on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Analysts said they believed the data may have already been priced into the energy futures. The June contract for crude fell about 10% last week.
