By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles unexpectedly increased last week, petroleum trade group API said in a report Tuesday, adding to concerns about the energy demand outlook amid fears about a global slowdown.
Crude Oil WTI Futures, the U.S. benchmark, traded at $81.48 a barrel following the report after settling up 2.1% at $85.57 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories increased by 377,000 barrels during the week ended Apr. 7, according to the American Petroleum Institute, or API, confounding expectations for a 1.3-million-barrel decline.
In the prior week to March 31, the API reported a 4.3M-barrel decline.
Aside from the absolute inventory in crude, the API cited a 1.4M barrel deficit at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude.
The API report also showed that gasoline inventories jumped by 450,000 barrels last week, and distillate stocks decreased by 2M barrels.
The API data often serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, on Wednesday.
For the week ended April 7, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile drop of 583,000 barrels.
The strong day of gains for crude prices come even as concerns about the energy demand outlook linger amid worries about a slowdown in global growth.
The International Monetary Fund trimmed its forecasting for global real GDP growth to 2.8% for 2023 and 3.0% for 2024.