HOUSTON, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday revealed a decrease of 1.05 million barrels of crude oil inventories for last week, after two weeks of build-up.
U.S. crude oil stockpiles in the previous week added 6.8 million barrels, the biggest gain in almost 11 months.
Oil slid to a two-week low and is headed for its longest losing streak in two months as a plunge in global equities dragged other markets lower.
Meanwhile, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent benchmarks both took losses earlier in the week, and on Tuesday the prices took a hit as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) upped its prediction for U.S. production, foretelling that the country will reach 11 million barrels per day by the end of 2018.
The number of rigs drilling for crude in the United States jumped to the highest in almost six months, and U.S. output breached 10 million barrels a day in November, the highest in more than 40 years.
On Monday, oil was being swept into the global sell-off at a time when concerns emerged that a rally in crude is overdone. ExxonMobil and Chevron plunged more than 5 percent each, among the worst performers on the Dow Jones.
