Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures inched off lows post-settlement trading Wednesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported a larger-than-expected decline in weekly domestic crude stocks.
Crude Oil WTI Futures, the U.S. benchmark, traded at $69.30 a barrel following the report after settling down 1.6%% at $69.20 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories decreased by about 7.4M barrels for the week ended Aug. 30, compared with a decline of 3.4M barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a decline of just 900,000 barrels.
Gasoline stockpiles fell by about 300,000 barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- fell by 400,000 barrels.
The official government inventory report is due Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT).
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