Crude oil prices fell on Wednesday after a sharp rebound in US oil imports triggered an unexpected build up in inventories.

The US Department of Energy said that the country’s oil stocks rose last week by 200,000 barrels, confounding analysts’ expectations for a 1.1m barrel drop. The increase came after oil imports jumped to 9.2m barrels a day, up 1.1m b/d from last week’s depressed level.