Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures were slightly lower from post-settlement lows Tuesday even as the American Petroleum Institute reported an a much larger decline in weekly domestic crude stockpiles.

Crude Oil WTI Futures , the U.S. benchmark, recently traded at $68.07 a barrel following the report after settling down 0.2% at $68.26 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories declined by 1.5M barrels for the week ended Feb. 28, compared with a draw of 640,000 barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a draw of just 300,000 barrels.

Gasoline stockpiles decreased by about 1.2M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- increased by 1.1M barrels.

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