Falling crude oil supply

The weekly petroleum status report from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has shown that US commercial crude inventories have decreased by 4.4 million bbls in the last week. This brings the total US commercial crude inventory to 355.6 million bbls. Inventories are now close to the middle of the five year range for this time of year.

Petroleum product inventories

• Gasoline inventories decreased by 1.6 million bbls last week and remain in the upper half of the five year average.
• Total motor gasoline supplied averaged 8.9 million bpd over the past month, down 100 000 bpd from the prior average.
• Distillate inventories fell by 1.1 million bbls last week and remain near the lower limit of the average.
• Distillate production totalled 5.1 million bpd last week, 100 000 bpd more than the previous week.

Crude prices

Before the weekly oil report was released, crude was trading at US$ 105.70 /bbl and after was trading at US$ 106.10 /bbl.

Imports and throughputs

Over the past week crude imports have averaged 7.6 million bpd, down by approximately 440 000 bpd from the previous week. Refineries were running at 92.5% capacity utilisation with a daily input of 16.1 million bpd, approximately 200 000 bpd higher than the previous week.

A sharp drop was seen in inventories when refineries increased throughput levels, but it does not account for the entire difference week on week. Reduced imports would seem to be the main reason for lower inventories. A drop of 100 000 bpd in product supplied indicates that gasoline supplies remain plentiful.

Adapted from press release by Claira Lloyd

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/20092013/falling_us_crude_supply/