Crude oil inventories in the United States increased by 6.2 million barrels during the week ending March 13, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The increase brings commercial stockpiles to 449.3 million barrels according to government data, which is still 1% 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 reported that crude oil inventories saw a surprise build of 6.556 million barrels in the period.
Crude prices were continuing to climb in early trade on Wednesday morning after a persistent stagnation of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and continued oil production disruptions in Iraq, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, with some reports suggesting that more than 8 million bpd had been taken offline. At 8:48 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $106 per barrel—up $2.51 (+2.43%) on the day, and up roughly $16 per week from this time last week. WTI was also trading up on the day, by $.11 per barrel (+0.11%) in morning trade at $96.16 per barrel – up roughly $10 per barrel week over week.
For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported that inventories had decreased by 5.4 million barrels after dipping by 3.7 million barrels in the week prior. The most recent figures showed that average daily gasoline production decreased to 9.4 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories decreased by 2.5 million barrels, with production decreasing by 75,000 barrels daily to an average of 4.9 million barrels daily.
Total products supplied—a proxy for U.S. oil demand—averaged 21.0 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, up 2.1% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.7 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied averaged 4.0 million barrels—up 0.4% percent year over year.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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