HOUSTON, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported Tuesday a decrease in U.S. oil inventories by around 2.739 million barrels for the week ending March 16.
API forecast the oil inventories to increase by 3.2 million barrels for the week. The difference between the two numbers implies greater demand and bullish for crude prices.
Furthermore, being fueled by Middle East tensions and dwindling crude output in Venezuela, oil prices rose on Tuesday.
On Tuesday afternoon, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent, two major oil price benchmarks, went up over 2.2 percent to 63.54 U.S. dollars and 67.33 dollars respectively.
Last week, the API reported an increase of 1.156 million barrels of crude oil, or 346,000 barrels less than expected.
