After plunging oil bulls into deeper gloom by forecasting a 131,000-bpd jump in shale oil production next month, the Energy Information Administration reported a 5-million-barrel increase in crude oil inventories for the week to March 9—in stark contrast to yesterday’s API figures. This compares with a 2.4-million-barrel build reported last week and analyst expectations of a 560,000-bpd increase. A day earlier, the American Petroleum Institute reported an estimated 1.156-million-barrel inventory increase for the period. In gasoline, the authority gave market players some respite, saying that inventories had fallen by whopping 6.3 million barrels, after an 800,000-barrel decline a week earlier. Gasoline inventories have been rising for most of the time since the start of the year, with just two weekly declines so far, to the tune of 2.8 million barrels. This is the third gasoline inventory decline since January. Refineries processed 16.4 million barrels of crude daily last week, […]