The U.S. government's Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that problems with its systems have forced it to delay the scheduled release Thursday of its weekly report on U.S. oil inventories.

"Our experts are working on a solution to restore the affected systems," it said in a statement, without giving an indication of when the oil data and some other scheduled data may be released. "We apologize for the inconvenience of this delay, and remain committed to our mission of collecting, analyzing and disseminating independent and impartial energy information as we resolve this issue."

Despite the problems, the EIA said it nonetheless will be able to release its weekly natural gas storage report as scheduled, Thursday morning at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The weekly EIA oil report is closely watched by investors in oil- and fuel-trading markets, as it is considered the most reliable and up-to-date data in the world for gauging oil supply and demand balances. The headline numbers on U.S. crude-oil and gasoline inventories often cause oil prices in the futures market to immediately rise or fall.

For this week's report, a survey Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal indicates analysts and traders are forecasting, on average, that crude-oil inventories fell by 1.2 million barrels in the week that ended June 17.

The EIA oil inventory report is normally released on Wednesdays but was pushed back to a planned Thursday release due to Monday's Juneteenth holiday.

Write to Dan Molinski at dan.molinski@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 22, 2022 16:42 ET (20:42 GMT)