HOUSTON, April 9 (Xinhua) -- The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported an increase of 4.09 million barrels in the U.S. crude oil inventories for the week ending April 5.
In the previous week ending March 29, API reported an increase of 2.96 million barrels of crude oil inventories, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a build of 7.2 million barrels of crude oil inventories for the week.
EIA will release its data on crude oil inventories on Wednesday, and the market expected it to grow by 2.29 million barrels.
Oil prices slid on Tuesday as market participants grew concerned that a looming global economic slowdown would hit fuel consumption.
The West Texas Intermediate for May delivery fell 0.42 dollar to settle at 63.98 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Brent crude for June delivery decreased 0.49 dollar to close at 70.61 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
