API: US oil inventories rose by 3.4 million barrels

The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a 3.378-million-barrel increase in crude oil inventories for the last week in the U.S. Earlier consecutive reserve increases of 7.615 million and 14.865 million barrels had been recorded.

The latest API report also showed a build-up in gasoline inventories of 0.620 million barrels and a decline in distillate inventories of 1.929 million barrels.

The API data is released as an approximate figure of official stockpile statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesdays.

The EIA probably will report an increase of 0.971 million barrels in crude oil inventories, in addition to a rise of 8.408 million barrels for the previous week.

As for gasoline stocks, the consensus forecast contains 1.767-million-barrel growth after last week's increase of 3.483 million barrels.

Distillate inventories will be reduced by another 1.121 million barrels after a decrease of 1.939 million barrels.