Oil edged lower on Wednesday in choppy trade on profit-taking from two straight days of gains. According to the EIA U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week as refineries ramped up operations after maintenance season and U.S. imports fell to a two-year low. Crude inventories fell by 7.5 million barrels in the week ending March 24th to 473.7 million. Stocks at the Cushing fell by 1.6 million barrels. Refinery operations hit their highest level so far this year with crude runs rising 437,000 barrels per day to 15.8 million barrels per day, and utilization rates were up by 1.7% to 90.3% of total capacity. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 23 cents, or 0.3 %, to settle at $72.97 per barrel. Brent crude also closed lower down 37 cents day-over-day to close at US$78.28 per barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oil edged lower on Wednesday in choppy trade on profit taking from two straight days of gains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-petroleum-daily"],"yoast_head":"\n