Both U.S. crude oil imports and exports went down during the week ending Feb. 8, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday.

According to the Weekly Petroleum Status Report, U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.2 million barrels per day (b/d) last week, down by 936,000 b/d from the previous week, while crude oil exports averaged 2.4 million barrels a day, down by 506,000 b/d from the previous week.

Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 7.2 million b/d, 11.2 percent less than the same four-week period last year.

The daily average exports of crude oil over the past four weeks were about 2.3 million barrels, up by 857,000 b/d year-on-year.

When adding in all imports and exports of crude oil and petroleum products, the United States imported a net 631,000 b/d last week, seeing a fall of 1 million barrels from the Jan. 26 to Feb. 4 week.

In EIA's latest Short-Term Energy Outlook issued Tuesday, EIA said that U.S. crude oil and petroleum product net imports are estimated to fall from an average of 3.8 million b/d in 2017 to an average of 2.4 million b/d in 2018. EIA forecasts that net imports will continue to fall to an average of 0.9 million b/d in 2019 and to an average net export level of 0.3 million b/d next year.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, EIA forecasts the United States will be a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products by about 1.1 million b/d.