Crude oil inventories in the United States increased by 16 million barrels during the week ending February 20, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The decrease brings commercial stockpiles to 435.8 million barrels according to government data, which is still 3% 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 rose by a massive 11.4 million barrels in the period. Recent weeks have been distorted by weather-related production freeze-offs and the subsequent snap-back in output, which can swing inventories sharply from one report to the next. With imports, exports, and refinery runs all moving around at the same time, a large build would say more about timing and normalization than a sudden collapse in demand. Four-week averages of products supplied aren’t rolling over, so any single large build (or draw) is much more likely a flow/timing normalization than a demand cliff.
Crude prices were trading up on Wednesday morning. At 9:48 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $71.09 per barrel—up $0.32 (+0.45%) on the day. This is down roughly $0.70 per barrel week over week. WTI was also trading up, by $0.21 per barrel (+0.32%) in morning trade at $65.84 per barrel.
For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported that inventories had decreased by 1 million barrels after dipping by 3.2 million barrels in the week prior. The most recent figures showed average daily gasoline production decreased to 9.2 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories increased by 300,000 barrels with production decreasing by 136,000 barrels daily to an average of 4.8 million barrels daily.
Total products supplied—a proxy for U.S. oil demand—rose to 21.4 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, up 5.4% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.5 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied averaged 4.4 million barrels—up 4% percent year over year.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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