Crude oil inventories in the United States increased by 6.4 million barrels during the week ending November 7, after gaining 5.2 million barrels in the week prior, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Thursday. The increase brings commercial stockpiles to 427.6 million barrels according to government data, which is still 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 grew by 1.3 million barrels.
Crude prices were trading up on Thursday morning after Wednesday’s panic over OPEC’s assertion that the market would be balanced next year as opposed to its previous reporting that foretold a deficit. At 10:46 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $63.26 per barrel—up $0.55 (+0.88%) on the day, but a nearly $1 per barrel decrease from last week’s level. WTI was also trading up by $0.55 per barrel (+0.94%) in mid-morning trade.
For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported that inventories had contracted by 900,000 barrels, after seeing two weeks of large draws that when combined, represented a more than 10 million barrel loss in inventory. The most recent figures showed average daily gasoline production increasing to 9.9 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories decreased by another 600,000 barrels, with production increasing by 319,000 barrels daily to an average of 5.0 million barrels daily. Distillate inventories are now 8% below the five-year average for this time of year.
Total products supplied over the last four weeks increased to 20.6 million barrels per day, down 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 averaged 3.8 million barrels—down by 2.3 percent year over year.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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