Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil futures traded above post-settlement levels Tuesday despite the American Petroleum Institute reporting a surprise increase in weekly domestic crude stockpiles.

Crude Oil WTI Futures , the U.S. benchmark, recently traded at $61.52 a barrel following the report after settling down 0.3% at $61.33 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 2.4M barrels for the week ended Apr. 11, compared with a draw of 1.06M barrels reported by the API for the previous week and confounding expectations for a draw of $1.7M.

Gasoline stockpiles decreased by about 3M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- fell by 3.2M barrels.

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