U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 6.1 million barrels from the week ending on August 11 to the week ending on August 18, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest weekly petroleum status report.
Crude oil stocks in the country, minus SPR stocks, stood at 433.5 million barrels on August 18, the report showed. This figure stood at 439.7 million barrels on August 11 and 421.7 million barrels on August 19, 2022, the report highlighted.
There were 348.9 million barrels of crude oil in the SPR on August 18, 348.4 million barrels on August 11, and 453.1 million barrels on August 19, 2022, the report outlined.
“At 433.5 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about two percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA report noted.
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.8 million barrels per day during the week ending August 18, according to the report, which stated that this was 30,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 94.5 percent of their operable capacity last week, the report revealed.
The report said U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.9 million barrels per day last week and highlighted 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, 6.3 percent more than the same four-week period last year,” the report stated.
“Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 893,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 88,000 barrels per day,” it added.
Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 1.5 million barrels from last week and are about five percent below the five year average for this time of year, according to the EIA report.
“Both finished gasoline and blending components inventories increased last week. Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.9 million barrels last week and are about 16 percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the report stated.
“Propane/propylene inventories increased 1.7 million barrels from last week and are 21 percent above the five year average for this time of year. Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 3.0 million barrels last week,” it added.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.9 million barrels a day, the report noted, adding that this was up by 4.5 percent from the same period last year.
“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.0 million barrels a day, up by 1.3 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA said in the report.
“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.8 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 2.2 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 5.6 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it added.
In a report sent to Rigzone this week, prior to the release of the EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report, Macquarie strategists revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be down 7.5 million barrels for the week ending August 18.
“This follows a 6.0 million barrel draw for the week ending August 11, with the total U.S. crude balance realizing significantly tighter than we had anticipated,” the strategists said in the report.
“While we have seen healthy week to week volatility in reported EIA stock changes compared to our estimates recently, in aggregate, total reported crude draws since the end of June appear reasonably consistent with our weekly balances over the same timeframe,” they added.
“For this week, from refineries, we look for crude runs down minimally. We look for further tightening from net imports, with exports effectively unchanged on a nominal basis and imports moderately lower (-0.4 MBD),” the strategists noted in the report.
The Macquarie strategists highlighted in the report that they were looking for a slight week on week increase (+0.1 MBD) from implied domestic supply.
“Rounding out the picture, we anticipate another small increase in SPR inventory on the week (+0.5 million barrels),” the strategists said in the report.
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