WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices were sharply lower on Wednesday after gaining for the last two days.
Benchmark Brent crude futures fell 1.6 percent to $72.52 a barrel, while WTI crude futures were down 1.6 percent at $68.83.
Traders booked profits after industry data pointed to an inventory build in the U.S., raising concerns about fuel demand.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 1.96 million barrels for the week ending September 13, breaking a three-week trend of declining inventories and contradicting expectations of a 100,000-barrel decrease.
Gasoline and distillate inventories showed builds of 2.34M barrels and 2.3M barrels for the week, while stockpiles at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub showed a draw of 1.4M barrels.
The weekly oil report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is due later in the day.
Markets also await the Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision later in the day for directional cues.
The U.S. central bank is likely to deliver the first cut to interest rates in more than four years but there is a debate about the size of reduction after data showed U.S. retail sales unexpectedly ticked up in August in a sign of ongoing consumer resilience.
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