Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures were slightly higher from post-settlement levels Tuesday even as the American Petroleum Institute reported a massive surprise increase in weekly domestic crude inventories.
Crude Oil WTI Futures , the U.S. benchmark, recently traded at $66.81 a barrel following the report after settling down $0.46, or 0.7%, at $66.52 barrel.
U.S. crude inventories rose by about 19.1M barrels for the week ended Jul. 11, compared with a build of 7.1M barrels reported by the API for the previous week and expectations for an decline of about 2M barrels.
Gasoline stockpiles decreased by 4.53M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- fell by about 2.4M barrels.
The official government inventory report is due Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT).