USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop Week on Week

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 2.3 million barrels from the week ending January 16 to the week ending January 23.

That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on January 28 and included data for the week ending January 23.

According to the report, crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 423.8 million barrels on January 23, 426.0 million barrels on January 16, and 415.1 million barrels on January 24, 2025. The report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding.

Crude oil in the SPR stood at 415.0 million barrels on January 23, 414.5 million barrels on January 16, and 394.8 million barrels on January 24, 2025, 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 1.715 billion barrels on January 23, the report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks were down 6.3 million barrels week on week and up 107.7 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.

“At 423.8 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 0.2 million barrels from last week and are about five percent above the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories increased, while blending components inventories decreased last week,” it added.

“Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.3 million barrels last week and are about one percent above the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased 4.7 million barrels from last week and are about 41 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” it continued.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.2 million barrels per day during the week ending January 23, according to the EIA report, which highlighted that this was 395,000 barrels per day less than the previous week’s average.

“Refineries operated at 90.9 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA said in the report.

“Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 9.6 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased by 268,000 barrels per day last week, averaging 4.8 million barrels per day,” it added.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.6 million barrels per day last week, the report noted. It pointed out that this was a decrease of 804,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.4 million barrels per day, 0.9 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 364,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 253,000 barrels per day,” it added.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.3 million barrels per day, 0.1 percent below the same period last year, the EIA stated in its report.

“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.3 million barrels per day, down by 0.4 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA added.

“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, down by 4.8 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 5.5 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it continued.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team this week, ahead of the release of the EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report, Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor, revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be up by 0.9 million barrels for the week ending January 23.

“This follows a 3.6 million barrel build in the prior week, with the crude balance realizing somewhat looser relative to our expectations, alongside another large product build,” the strategists said in that report.

“While global crude fundamentals have seen significant noise around sanctions, disruptions, and weather in recent months, we believe the extent of total petroleum (crude + refined products) builds in the highly visible U.S. has been somewhat underappreciated,” they added.

“In any event, for the week ending 1/23, from refineries, we look for a modest reduction in crude runs (-0.3 million barrels per day); again, we see some potential for continued outperformance here as turnarounds have been slow to materialize,” they noted.

“Among net imports, we model a moderate reduction, with exports meaningfully higher (+0.5 million barrels per day) and imports effectively unchanged on a nominal basis,” they stated.

The Macquarie strategists warned in the report that “timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in the weekly crude balance, as does timing of turnarounds”.

“From implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers), we look for a modest nominal reduction (-0.2 million barrels per day). Rounding out the picture, we anticipate a smaller increase (+0.5 million barrels) in SPR stocks for the week ending 1/23,” they added.

The Macquarie strategists went on to state in that report that, “among products”, they “again look for another meaningful gasoline build (+3.9 million barrels), with distillate (-0.1 million barrels) and jet stocks (+0.3 million barrels) relatively flat”.

“We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.3 million barrels per day for the week ending January 23,” they said.

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