On August 28, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly State of the Oil report. The report showed that crude oil inventories fell by 800,000 barrels from the previous week, below analysts' expectations of a 3 million barrel decrease. The current level of crude oil inventories is about 4% below the five-year average for the same period.

Gasoline inventories fell by 2.2 million barrels, while analysts were expecting a decline of 1.5 million barrels. In contrast, distillate inventories increased by 300,000 barrels from the previous week.

U.S. crude oil imports fell by 92,000 bpd to average 6.6 million bpd. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports have averaged 6.4 million bbl/day.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve increased from 377.2 million barrels to 377.9 million barrels as the U.S. continued to purchase oil for its reserves.

U.S. domestic crude oil production declined from 13.4 million bbl/day to 13.3 million bbl/day. Taken as a whole, domestic producers appear to be reluctant to ramp up production to 13.5 million b/d at current oil price levels.

As traders reacted to the EIA report, WTI crude oil prices moved off their intraday lows. Currently, WTI crude prices are trying to stabilize above $74.70. Brent crude rebounded above $78.50 following the release of the EIA data.