oil futures declined on monday with both major crude benchmarks on track for february losses in the penultimate session of the month the us benchmark has suffered as the us government reported nine weekly gains in a row for crude inventories while uncertainty about the global economic outlook and a rebound by the us dollar have also kept a lid on prices analysts said the downbeat mood reflects the continued buildup of crude inventories week after week despite talks of a tight market manish raj managing director at velandera energy partners told marketwatch clearly the physical market isnt as tight as the market chatter portrays it to be the us energy information administration reported a 76 millionbarrel rise in domestic crude inventories for the week ended feb 17  that marked a ninth weekly increase in a row the only times commercial inventories have been higher were during the glut of 201617 and in the early days of the pandemic in 2020 said alex kuptsikevich senior market analyst at fxpro in a note crude supplies are now 151 higher than one year ago he noted sharply rising inventories have seen us production stabilize at 123 million barrels a day over the past three weeks the analyst said and in comparison to the rampup in production from mid2011 to mid2015 and from october 2016 to march 2020 output is now seeing a creeping increase signaling the us is in no hurry to lose the market share that russia and the organization of the petroleum exporting countries are losing kuptsikevich said raj said the resilience of russian barrels both crude and refined has surprised the market as oil continues to flow unabated every barrel displaced from europe raj said has found its way to buyers elsewhere and therefore the much talked about shortage is yet to materialize readthe real impact of russias invasion of ukraine on commodities still russia unexpectedly halted flows of oil to poland via the druzhba pipeline over the weekend news reports said the pipeline supplied around 400000 barrels a day of crude into europe mainly via poland in recent months the ing analysts said pkn orlen sa polands largest oil company said the halt wouldnt immediately affect end users because russian crude makes up around only 10 of total supply although a longer disruption could have an impact meanwhile hot inflation and other economic data have led traders to shift expectations toward more aggressive rate hikes by the federal reserve than previously expected thats stoked fears of an economic downturn while also lifting the us dollar a rising dollar can be a headwind for commodities priced in the unit making them more expensive to users of other currencies us inflation data has renewed concerns over higher interest rates by the federal reserve in the near term and overshadowed the supply outages from the druzhba oil pipeline in europe said commodity strategists at ing in a monday note