WTI crude oil is trading bullish into Thursday amid rising expectations for rapid economic recovery due to the vaccine rollout even as fuel stockpiles in the US declined over the past week. At the time of writing, WTI crude oil is trading at around $64.97 per barrel.

The EIA report which released during the previous session revealed that gasoline inventories in the US declined by 11.9 million barrels over the past week, raising hopes for improvement in fuel demand across the world’s largest energy consumer. Economists had forecast a drop by 3.5 million barrels instead, and the larger than expected drop supported gains in crude oil.

Crude oil prices were also boosted by President Biden’s $1.9 trillion worth of stimulus programs getting an approval by the House of Representatives. Increased stimulus measures raises hopes for further increase in fuel consumption by Americans in the near future.

However, due to the Texas deep freeze keeping oil refiners in the region shut, crude inventories increased by 13.8 million barrels to 498.4 million barrels, against the forecast for an increase by 816k barrels instead. The surprisingly high build in crude inventories capped gains in oil prices.