Strong Crude, Gasoline Draw Jolts Oil Prices

The American Petroleum Institute (API) has reported a large 5.521-million-barrel draw in U.S. crude inventories, on top of the previous week's 11.486-million-barrel draw. Analysts were expecting a smaller inventory draw of 1.429 million barrels for the week. The total number of barrels of crude oil gained so far this year is now in the red, according to API data, and there is a net draw in crude inventories since April of almost 50 million barrels. On Monday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum…