U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 6.0 million barrels from the week ended Aug. 4 to the week ended August 11, according to the latest weekly report on the state of oil from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). revealed
Crude oil inventories, excluding the SPR, were 439.7 million barrels on August 11, 445.6 million barrels on August 4 and 425.0 million barrels on August 12. 2022, the EIA report showed. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 348.4 million barrels on August 11, 347.8 million barrels on August 4 and 461.2 million barrels on August 12, 2022, according to the report.
“At 439.7 million barrels, U.S. crude inventories are about one percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” the EIA noted in the report, and added that total commercial oil inventories fell by 7.4 million barrels last week.
“Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.3 million barrels from last week and are about six percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” the EIA report stated.
“Finished gasoline inventories declined, while blending component inventories rose last week. Distillate fuel inventories rose by 0.3 million barrels last week and are around 16 percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” he added.
“Propane/propylene inventories rose 0.7 million barrels from last week and are 21 percent above the five-year average for this time of year,” the report continued.
Inflows from U.S. crude oil refineries averaged 16.7 million barrels per day for the week ended Aug. 11, which was 166,000 barrels per day higher than the weekly average above, according to the report.
Refineries operated at 94.7 percent of their operating capacity last week, the report noted, adding that gasoline production declined last week, averaging 9.6 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production fell last week, averaging 4.7 million barrels per day, the report noted.
According to the report, US crude imports averaged 7.2 million barrels per day last week and were up 476,000 barrels per day from the previous week.
“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.7 million barrels per day, up 4.1 percent from the same four-week period last year,” the report said .
“Total motor gasoline imports (including finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 586,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 129,000 barrels per day “, added.
Total supplies over the past four weeks averaged 20.9 million barrels per day, up 3.8 percent from the same period last year, the report said.
“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplies averaged 9.0 million barrels per day, down 0.9 percent from the same period last year,” he said.
“The distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, down 2.1 percent from the same period last year. The fuel product for aircraft supplied increased by 4.6 percent compared to the same four-week period last year,” he added.
In a report sent to Rigzone on Tuesday, ahead of the release of the EIA’s latest weekly oil state report, Macquarie strategists revealed they were forecasting US crude inventories to fall 3.1 million barrels for the week ending August 11.
“This follows a build of 5.9 million barrels for the week ended August 4, with the total US crude stockpiling realizing significantly more slack than we had anticipated,” the strategists said in the report.
“Moving into this week, from refineries, we model a modest increase in crude runs (+0.1MBD). We look again for a broad swing in net imports, this week towards tightening the balance, with much higher exports in nominal terms (+1.5 MBD) and little varied imports”, they add.
“Based on implied domestic supply (prod + adj.), we look for a small increase (+0.2 MBD) this week. To complete the picture, we expect a small increase in SPR inventory for the week (+0 .6 million barrels),” they continued.
In the report, the strategists stated that, “with large fundamental swings in flows as well as inherent noise in the weekly data, we are wary of the weekly volatility in the EIA crude statistics.”
“In Cushing, our refinery/pipeline model calls for a draw of 1.3 million barrels this week. Among products, we look for gasoline consumption (-1.6 million barrels) with distillates (-0 .1 million barrels) and jet stocks (-0.2 million barrels) also slightly lower,” they add.
“We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.4 MBD compared to last week’s 14.9 MBD and a trailing four-week average of 14.5 MBD,” the strategists continued.
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