USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop Nearly 2MM Barrels WoW

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 1.8 million barrels from the week ending November 28 to the week ending December 5, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

That report was published on December 10 and included data for the week ending December 5. The report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 425.7 million barrels on December 5, 427.5 million barrels on November 28, and 422.0 million barrels on December 6, 2024.

Crude oil in the SPR stood at 411.9 million barrels on December 5, 411.7 million barrels on November 28, and 392.5 million barrels on December 6, 2024, the report revealed. Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.684 billion barrels on December 5, the report showed. Total petroleum stocks were down 2.9 million barrels week on week and up 55.8 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.

“At 425.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about four percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

“Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 6.4 million barrels from last week and are about one percent below the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline and blending components inventories increased last week,” it added.

“Distillate fuel inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels last week and are about seven percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased 1.8 million barrels from last week and are about 15 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” it continued.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.9 million barrels per day during the week ending December 5, according to the report, which highlighted that this was 17,000 barrels per day less than the previous week’s average.

“Refineries operated at 94.5 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA said in its report.

“Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.6 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production increased by 380,000 barrels per day last week, averaging 5.4 million barrels per day,” it added.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.6 million barrels per day last week, the EIA noted in the report. It pointed out that this was an increase of 609,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.2 million barrels per day, 7.7 percent less than the same four-week period last year,” the EIA said in its report.

“Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 659,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 181,000 barrels per day,” it added.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.4 million barrels a day, up by 1.6 percent from the same period last year, the EIA stated in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.5 million barrels a day, down by 1.3 percent from the same as the last year period,” it added.

“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 3.4 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was down 0.8 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it went on to state.

In a market comment sent to Rigzone on Wednesday, Wael Makarem, Financial Markets Strategists Lead at Exness, highlighted that the American Petroleum Institute (API) “reported a massive draw in crude oil inventories of 4.8 million barrels, significantly larger than the forecast of a 1.7 million barrel draw”.

Makarem added in that comment that “traders could react to the EIA crude inventory data later today, which could complement the API data”.

Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor, revealed in a report sent to Rigzone late Monday by the Macquarie team that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be down by 7.0 million barrels for the week ending December 5.

“This follows a 0.6 million barrel build in the prior week, with the crude balance again realizing tight relative to our expectations,” the strategists said in that report.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com