Crude oil futures continued their slump in the middle of the trading week following a massive two-week supply increase. Oil prices have been sliding since the fear trade over the conflict in the Middle East dissipated. While some market analysts note that the fundamentals have not changed, investors appear to be waiting for another catalyst to drive energy prices.

December West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures tumbled $0.99, or 1.27%, to $77.27 a barrel at 16:49 GMT on Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. WTI prices have risen 0.3% this week but are down nearly 4% year-to-date.

Brent, the international benchmark for oil prices, dropped below $82 midweek. January Brent crude futures shed $0.71, or 0.86%, to $81.75 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. Brent is up about 2.5% this week, but it remains down 5% on the year.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) published two weeks’ worth of supply data, and the numbers revealed a massive injection into inventories.

For the weeks ending Nov. 3 and 10, crude oil inventories soared more than 17 million barrels. Gasoline supplies declined by nearly eight million barrels, distillate stockpiles fell close to five million barrels, and heating oil stocks dropped roughly 600,000 barrels.

Supplies at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage facility rose by approximately 2.6 million barrels.

Meanwhile, the EIA added that it has made adjustments to the way it collects data. However, it remains unclear if these changes coincided with the massive build-up in commercial stocks.

In other economic data that could support the soft landing narrative and potentially lift crude prices, the producer price index (PPI) fell 0.5% month-over-month in October, and the core PPI, which strips the volatile energy and food components, was unchanged at 0%. At the same time, retail sales slid 0.1% last month, down from the upwardly revised 0.9% in September.

In other energy commodities, December natural gas futures rallied $0.108, or 3.26%, to $3.423 per million British thermal units (Btu). December gasoline futures slipped $0.0207, or 0.93%, to $2.2021 a gallon. December heating oil futures jumped $0.0243, or 0.86%, to $2.8614 per gallon.