US Total Crude Oil Stocks Fall in Week Ended Aug. 28

10:45 AM EDT, 09/02/2026 (MT Newswires) -- US crude oil stocks, including those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, fell by 7.6 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 28 following a decrease of 3.6 million barrels in the previous week. Excluding inventories in the SPR, commercial crude oil stocks declined by 4.5 million barrels after a 100,000-barrel gain in the previous week, compared to the 60,000-barrel increase expected in a survey compiled by Bloomberg. Stocks in the SPR fell by 3.1 million in the week after falling by 3.7 million in the previous week. Overall crude oil stocks were 1.1% lower than the previous week and were down 13.9% from a year earlier. Crude oil inventories are about 1% above the five-year average for this time of the year. Gasoline stocks fell by 1.2 million barrels, a smaller decrease than the 1.6-million-barrel decrease expected. Gasoline stocks were down 0.6% from the previous week and 5.9% lower than a year earlier. Distillate stocks rose by 0.8 million barrels in the current week, compared with an expected decrease of 1.5 million barrels. Distillate stocks were up 0.8% from the previous week but were 10.1% lower than in the same week a year ago. Refineries operated at 98.0% of their capacity, up from 97.4% in the previous week.