U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were down 30 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $76.11 a barrel.
“Data for last week showed a much more significant than expected … build in U.S. commercial crude (inventories), which generally suggests that oil prices should tumble,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia-Pacific at futures brokerage Oanda in Singapore.
U.S. crude oil stocks C-STK-T-EIA rose by nearly 8 million barrels last week to about 404 million barrels, the biggest increase since March 2017, Energy Information Administration data showed on Wednesday.
U.S. weekly Midwest refinery utilization rates dropped to 78.9 percent, their lowest since October 2015, according to the data.
Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil production C-OUT-T-EIA remained at a record-high of 11.1 million barrels per day (bpd).
“This on top of the other big news of the day from Riyadh that … Saudi Arabia and Russia will boost output,” Innes said.
