API reports dip in U.S. oil inventories

HOUSTON, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- The American Petroleum Institute (API) Wednesday reported a fall in U.S. oil inventories by around 900,000 barrels for the week ending Feb. 16.

Last week, API reported a build of 3.947 million barrels of crude oil, along with a build of 4.634 million barrels in gasoline inventories.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent, two major oil price benchmarks, went down by 0.52 percent and 0.37 percent respectively on Wednesday to 61.47 U.S. dollars and 64.81 dollars a barrel respectively.