Weekly Petroleum Report; Re-Balancing Now Up To 27 Weeks; Third Consecutive Week That It Has Increased -- February 14, 2018

Weekly petroleum report: AEI crude oil inventory data:

• US crude oil inventories: up another 1.8 million bbls (this is the third consecutive week that inventories have increased)
• now at 422.1 million bbls -- supposedly in the lower half of the average range for this time of year; I've always considered 350 million bbls about the average 
• refineries operated at 89.8% of capacity; well off the norm
• gasoline production decreased; again, below 10 million b/d
• distillate fuel production also decreased; again, below 5 million b/d
• total products supplied surged 7% from the same period last year; averaging almost 21 million bbls/day
• gasoline product supplies averaged 9.0 million b/d, up by 6.5% from same period last year
• distillate fuel product supplied average over 4 million b/d; up 6.3% from same time last year
• jet fuel up almost 4% compared to same period last year

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Re-Balancing

Later: surprise, surprise -- this is why predicting the price of oil is a fool's errand. I'm not following the business news for now (now = February 1, 2018 -- February 28, 2018) so I can't explain this, but WTI popped this afternoon, up 2.65%; up $1.56; and, now, back over $60.75. Who wudda guessed? Certainly not me. 

Third consecutive week that "time to re-balance" has increased: now up to 27 weeks.  In graphic below, to keep the chart from getting too long, I've "hidden" the first 21 weeks.

WTI actually increased a bit after the report came out. This suggests that $60 is about the current floor for WTI, but tea leaves certainly suggest WTI could trend toward $55.

Summer driving season just starting to appear on the horizon; that should help. Gasoline demand is at this link. This week's graphic has not yet been posted (as of 12:07 p.m. CT.

Week	Date	Drawdown	Storage	Weeks to RB
Week 0	Apr 26, 2017		529.0	180
Week 22	September 27, 2017	1.8	471.0	46
Week 23	October 4, 2017	6.0	465.0	41
Week 24	October 12, 2017	2.8	462.2	40
Week 25	October 18, 2017	5.7	456.5	37
Week 26	October 25, 2017	-0.9	457.3	39
Week 27	November 1, 2017	2.4	454.9	38
Week 28	November 8, 2017	-2.2	457.1	42
Week 29	November 15, 2017	1.9	459.0	43
Week 30	November 22, 2017	1.9	457.1	42
Week 31	November 29, 2017	3.4	453.7	41
Week 32	December 6, 2017	5.6	448.1	37
Week 33	December 13, 2017	5.1	443.0	36
Week 34	December 20, 2017	6.5	436.5	30
Week 35	December 28, 2017	4.6	431.9	28
Week 36	January 4, 2018	7.4	424.5	25
Week 37	January 10, 2018	4.9	419.5	23
Week 38	January 18, 2018	6.9	412.7	20
Week 39	January 24, 2018	1.1	411.6	20
Week 40	January 31, 2018	-6.8	418.4	24
Week 41	February 7, 2018	-1.9	420.3	26
Week 42	February 14, 2018	-1.8	422.1	27