Crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 600,000 barrels during the week ending September 19, after shrinking by 9.3 million barrels in the week prior, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The move brings commercial stockpiles to 414.8 million barrels according to government data, which is 4% below the five-year average for this time of year.
The EIA’s data release follows API’s figures that were released a day earlier, which suggested that crude oil inventories contracted by 3.82 million barrels.
Crude prices were trading down on Wednesday morning in the runup to the EIA data release. At 10:15 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $68.56 per barrel—up $0.93 (+1.38%) on the day and a roughly $0.15 per barrel increase over last week’s level. WTI was also trading up, by $0.97 per barrel (+1.53%) in mid-morning trade.
For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported a decrease of 1.1 million barrels, after the week prior’s 2.3-million-barrel decrease. The most recent figures showed average daily gasoline production increasing to 9.7 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories decreased by 1.7 million barrels, with production increasing to 5 million barrels daily. Distillate inventories had increased by 4 million barrels in the week prior and are now 8% below the five-year average for this time of year.
Total products supplied over the last four weeks slipped to 20.5 million barrels per day, up 0.9% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.8 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied fell to 3.6 million barrels—down 5.7 percent year over year.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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