Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures slipped below post-settlement levels Tuesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported an unexpected increase in weekly domestic crude stockpiles.
Crude Oil WTI Futures, the U.S. benchmark, recently traded at $62.26 a barrel following the report after settling down $0.13, or 0.2%, at $62.56 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories rose by about 2.5M barrels for the week ended May. 16, compared with a build of 4.3M (NYSE:MMM) barrels reported by the API for the previous week and confounding expectations for a decline of about 1.9M barrels.
Gasoline stockpiles decreased by about 3.2M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- fell by 1.4M barrels.
The official government inventory report is due Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT).
