Roughneck Brian Waldner is covered in mud and oil while wrestling pipe on a True Company oil drilling rig outside Watford, North Dakota.
- Oil was down Wednesday after reported increases in US crude inventories.
- Meanwhile, OPEC is considering raising output.
- Follow crude prices in real time here.
Oil fell Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported an unexpected increase in US crude inventories.
West Texas Intermediate fell 1.3% to $64.67 a barrel at 11:45 a.m. ET. Crude, the international benchmark, was mostly unchanged.
US crude inventories increased by 2.1 million barrels last week, the EIA said, raising the total to 436.6 million barrels. Analysts had expected a drawdown of about 2 million barrels for the period. Domestic production rose to 10.8 million barrels per day from 10.77 million barrels a day the week before.
The American Petroleum Institute reported Tuesday that crude stockpiles fell by 2 million barrels in the week ending June 1, a larger drop than analysts had expected.
Both WTI and Brent have fallen about 3% over the past week on speculation OPEC could ease supply cuts, which Saudi Arabia and Russia recently suggested.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that US officials asked Saudi Arabia and other supply-cutting countries to raise output by about 1 million barrels per day, dampening prices.
WTI is up nearly 36% over the year.
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