By Liz Moyer

Investing.com — U.S. oil stockpiles rose slightly below expectations in the latest week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

increased 2.396 million barrels last week, compared with analysts’ expectations for a build of 2.96 million barrels.

“It looks like the Texas Massacre on oil, if we can call it that, is finally over with both production and refining returning to more normal-like numbers after weeks of massive swings,” said Investing.com analyst Barani Krishnan.

stockpiles, which include diesel and , rose 255,000 barrels in the week against expectations for a draw of 3.379 million barrels, the EIA data showed.

were 1.123 million barrels. The weekly was 7.1%, according to the EIA report.

rose 472,000 barrels last week the EIA said, compared with expectations for a 2.996 million-barrel draw.

“The analyst community can heave a sigh of relief that it almost got it right this time with the EIA reporting a crude stock build of less than 600,000 barrels above forecast for last week,” Krishnan added. “Ditto with gasoline inventories, which built by about half a million versus the expected draw, and distillates, which rose as well by a quarter million or so against forecasts. Refining, as a whole, has improved greatly too, with a utilization rate of 76.1% to capacity, compared with the previous week’s 69% and the horrendous 56% in the first reporting week after the Texas storm. On the production front, we remain at last week’s EIA estimate of 10.9 million barrels daily, suggesting output has leveled off to match the trend in refining. Exports are almost back to normal as well, at 2.52 million barrels daily versus the previous week’s 2.63 million.”