USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop Nearly 4MM Barrels WoW

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 3.8 million barrels from the week ending December 26 to the week ending January 2, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

This report was released on January 7 and included data for the week ending January 2. According to the report, crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 419.1 million barrels on January 2, 422.9 million barrels on December 26, 2025, and 414.6 million barrels on January 3, 2025.

Crude oil in the SPR stood at 413.5 million barrels on January 2, 413.2 million barrels on December 26, and 393.8 million barrels on January 3, 2025, the report showed. 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 1.707 billion barrels on January 2, the report revealed. Total petroleum stocks were up 8.4 million barrels week on week and up 78.7 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.

“At 419.1 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about three 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 7.7 million barrels from last week and are about three percent above the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories decreased, while blending components inventories increased last week,” it added.

“Distillate fuel inventories increased by 5.6 million barrels last week and are about three percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased 2.2 million barrels from last week and are about 29 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA continued.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.9 million barrels per day during the week ending January 2, according to the report, which pointed out that this was 62,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.

“Refineries operated at 94.7 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

“Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.0 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production increased by 81,000 barrels per day last week, averaging 5.3 million barrels per day,” it added.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.3 million barrels per day last week, the report noted. It highlighted that this was an increase of 1.4 million barrels per day from the previous week.

“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.0 million barrels per day, 9.7 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 549,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 207,000 barrels per day,” it added.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 19.9 million barrels a day, 1.9 percent below the same period last year, the EIA stated in the report.

“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.7 million barrels a day, up by 0.5 percent from the same as the last year period,” the EIA noted.

“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.6 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 4.3 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was down 1.9 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it added.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone on Tuesday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor, revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be down by 3.5 million barrels for the week ending January 2.

“This follows a 1.9 million barrel draw in the prior week, with the crude balance realizing tight relative to our expectations alongside oddly low import levels, particularly from Canada,” the strategists said in that report.

The EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report also highlighted that the price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil was $57.21 per barrel on January 2, “$0.61 more than a week ago, and $17.43 less than a year ago”.

The national average retail price for regular gasoline “decreased to $2.796 per gallon on January 5, 2026, $0.015 less than last week’s price, and $0.251 less than the year-ago price”, the update noted, adding that the national average retail diesel fuel price “decreased $0.023 to $3.477 per gallon, $0.084 less than the price one year ago”.

According to the AAA Fuel Prices website, as of January 8, the average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. is $2.819 per gallon and the average price of diesel in the country is $3.536 per gallon.

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