HOUSTON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices fell dramatically Wednesday morning after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a large build in crude oil inventories and the refinery utilization hit record-high levels in the country.
About one-and-half hour after the report by EIA, the West Texas Intermediate for September delivery lost 3.2 percent, or down 2.16 U.S. dollars, to 64.88 dollars a barrel, while Brent crude for October delivery lost 2.37 percent, or 1.72 dollars, to 70.74 dollars a barrel.
For the week ending Aug. 10, EIA reported a surprise build of 6.8 million barrels in its crude oil inventories while the market was expecting a draw 2.5 million barrels.
Meanwhile, the EIA report indicated that there was a draw of 740,000 barrels in the gasoline inventories as the market has expected.
As for distillates, the report showed a build of 3.6 million barrels while the market expectation was a build of 1 million barrels. The U.S. crude oil production went up to 10.9 million barrels per day. Enditem
