HOUSTON, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported a fall of 4.2 million barrels in the U.S. crude oil inventories for the week ending Feb. 22.
In the previous week ending Feb. 15, API reported a growth of 1.26 million barrels.
In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook released earlier this month, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said U.S. crude oil prices will fall and crude oil production will increase in 2019 and 2020.
According to the EIA, Brent crude oil spot prices will average 61 U.S. dollars per barrel in 2019 and 62 dollars per barrel in 2020, compared with an average of 71 dollars per barrel in 2018.
U.S. crude oil production averaged 12.0 million barrels per day (b/d) in January 2019, up 90,000 b/d from December 2018, said EIA.
It expected U.S. crude oil production to average 12.4 million b/d in 2019 and 13.2 million b/d in 2020, with most of the growth coming from the Permian region of the state of Texas and New Mexico.
Oil prices rose slightly on Tuesday, rebounding from previous session's sell-off, as investors saw prices likely to rise in the months ahead. The West Texas Intermediate for April delivery increased 2 cents to settle at 55.50 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Brent crude for April delivery was up 0.45 dollar to close at 65.21 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
