Crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 3.5 million barrels during the week ending January 30, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The decrease brings commercial stockpiles to 420.3 million barrels according to government data, which is 4% below the five-year average for this time of year. Analysts had expected a 2 million barrel drop in inventory.
The EIA’s data release follows API’s figures that were released a day earlier, which suggested that crude oil inventories fell by a colossal 11.1 million barrels.
Crude prices were trading up on Wednesday morning. At 9:58 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $67.65 per barrel—up $0.32 (+0.48%) on the day. While up on the day, it is a $0.45 per barrel drop week over week. WTI was also trading up, by $0.24 per barrel (+0.38%) in morning trade at $63.45 per barrel.
For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported that inventories had increased by 700,000 barrels after gaining 200,000 barrels in the week prior. The most recent figures showed that average daily gasoline production decreased to 9.0 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories decreased by 5.6 million barrels with production decreasing by 5,000 barrels daily to an average of 4.8 million barrels daily.
Total products supplied—a proxy for U.S. oil demand—rose to 20.8 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, up 0.9% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.3 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied averaged 4.0 million barrels—down 6.2 percent year over year.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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