U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), fell by 6.1 million barrels from the week ended Aug. 11 to the week ended August 18, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest oil week. status report
Crude stockpiles in the country, minus SPR, stood at 433.5 million barrels as of Aug. 18, the report showed. That number stood at 439.7 million barrels on August 11 and 421.7 million barrels on August 19, 2022, the report noted.
There were 348.9 million barrels of crude in the SPR on August 18, 348.4 million barrels on August 11 and 453.1 million barrels on August 19, 2022, according to report
“At 433.5 million barrels, U.S. crude inventories are about two percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” the EIA report noted.
Inflows from U.S. crude refineries averaged 16.8 million barrels per day in the week ended Aug. 18, the report said, which it said was 30,000 barrels per day more than the average of the previous week. Refineries operated at 94.5 percent of their operating capacity last week, the report revealed.
The report said U.S. crude imports averaged 6.9 million barrels per day last week and noted that they had decreased by 225,000 barrels per day from the previous week.
“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.9 million barrels per day, up 6.3 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 893,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 88,000 barrels per day day,” he added.
According to the EIA report, total motor gasoline inventories increased by 1.5 million barrels from last week and are about five percent below this week’s five-year average time of year
“Both finished gasoline and blending component inventories rose last week. Distillate fuel inventories rose by 0.9 million barrels last week and are about 16 percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” the report states.
“Propane/propylene inventories rose 1.7 million barrels from last week and are 21 percent above the five-year average for this time of year. Total commercial oil inventories were down by 3.0 million barrels last week,” he added.
Total supplies over the past four weeks averaged 20.9 million barrels per day, the report said, adding that this was up 4.5 percent from the same period last year.
“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplies averaged 9.0 million barrels per day, up 1.3 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA said in the report.
“The distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.8 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, down 2.2 percent from the same period last year. The fuel product for aircraft supplied increased by 5.6 percent compared to the same four-week period last year,” he added.
In a report sent to Rigzone this week, ahead of the release of the EIA’s latest weekly oil state report, Macquarie strategists revealed they forecast US crude inventories to fall 7.5 million barrels for the week ending August 18.
“This follows a 6.0 million barrel draw for the week ended August 11, with the total U.S. crude oil balance realizing significantly tighter than we had anticipated,” the strategists in the report.
“While we’ve seen some nice week-to-week volatility in reported EIA inventory changes compared to our recent estimates, overall, total reported crude oil additions since late June appear reasonably consistent with our weekly balances over the same time period,” they added.
“During this week, from the refineries, we are looking for crude oil to drop minimally. We expect further tightening from net imports, with exports effectively unchanged on a nominal basis and imports moderately lower (-0.4MBD),” strategists noted in the report.
Macquarie strategists noted in the report that they were looking for a slight weekly increase (+0.1MBD) in implied domestic supply.
“To complete the picture, we forecast another small increase in SPR inventory on the week (+0.5 million barrels),” strategists said in the report.
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