USA Crude Oil Stocks Rise Week on Week

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), increased by 3.5 million barrels from the week ending February 20 to the week ending February 27.

That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on March 4 and included data for the week ending February 27.

The EIA report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 439.3 million barrels on February 27, 435.8 million barrels on February 20, and 433.8 million barrels on February 28, 2025. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 415.4 million barrels on February 27 and February 20, and 395.3 million barrels on February 28, 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 1.684 billion barrels on February 27, the report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks were up 2.9 million barrels week on week and up 83.8 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.

“At 439.3 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 decreased by 1.7 million barrels from last week and are four percent above the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories increased last week, while blending components inventories decreased last week,” it added.

“Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.4 million barrels last week and are about three percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 0.8 million barrels from last week and are 54 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” it continued.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.8 million barrels per day during the week ending February 27, according to the EIA’s report, which noted that this was 180,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.

“Refineries operated at 89.2 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA said in the report.

“Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 9.3 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production increased by 61,000 barrels per day last week, averaging 4.8 million barrels per day,” it added.

U.S. crude oil imports “averaged 6.3 million barrels per day last week”, the report noted. It outlined that this was a decrease of 335,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.6 million barrels per day, 10.3 percent more than the same four-week period last year,” the EIA said in the report.

“Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 438,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 174,000 barrels per day,” it added.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 21.0 million barrels a day, up by 4.2 percent from the same period last year, the EIA stated in its report.

“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.5 million barrels a day, down by 0.2 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA noted.

“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 4.2 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 4.1 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 6.8 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it continued.

The EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report noted that the price for West Texas Intermediate crude oil was $66.96 per barrel on February 27, “$0.27 more than a week ago, and $3.01 less than a year ago”.

The report highlighted that the national average retail price for regular gasoline increased to $3.015 per gallon on March 2, “$0.078 more than last week’s price, and $0.063 less than the year-ago price”.

“The national average retail diesel fuel price increased $0.088 to $3.897 per gallon, $0.262 more than the price one year ago,” the report stated.

According to the AAA Fuel Prices website, on March 9, the average price of regular gasoline and diesel in the U.S. stood at $3.478 per gallon and $4.656 per gallon, respectively.

Yesterday’s average gasoline price stood at $3.450 per gallon, the week ago average gasoline price stood at $2.997 per gallon, the month ago average gasoline price stood at $2.902 per gallon, and the year ago average gasoline price stood at $3.089 per gallon, the site highlighted.

Yesterday’s average diesel price stood at $4.595 per gallon, the week ago average diesel price stood at $3.770 per gallon, the month ago average diesel price stood at $3.634 per gallon, and the year ago average diesel price stood at $3.635 per gallon, according to the AAA Fuel Prices site.

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