Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures climbed slightly from post-settlement lows Tuesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported an unexpected decline in weekly domestic crude stockpiles.

Crude Oil WTI Futures , the U.S. benchmark, recently traded at $73.17 a barrel following the report after settling down 2.5% at $68.93 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories declined by 640,000 barrels for the week ended Feb. 21, compared with a build of 3.3M barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a build of 2.3M barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles increased by about 537,000 barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- fell by 1.1M barrels.

The official government inventory report is due Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET (1530 GMT)