EIA Weekly US Crude Oil Inventory Data; US Sets All-Time Gasoline Demand -- August 14, 2019

EIA: weekly US crude oil inventories -- link here:

• US crude oil change: increased by 1.6 million bbls -- WTI slumps 4%; now trading below $55 (again)
  
• US crude oil inventory: 440.5 million bbls; 3% above the five-year average; and the five-year average has been steadily increasing for the past several years;
• refiner's operating capacity at: 94.8% -- a healthy number

Gasoline demand: we'll see the graph later this afternoon at this link.  At 2:57 p.m. CT, the EIA has posted the new data at the link but not the new graph. [Later: the EIA "gasoline demand" graph is finally posted, a day late.] Until then, this graphic from twitter:

Re-balancing:

Week	Week Ending	Change	Million Bbls Storage
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5
Week 2	December 6, 2018	-7.3	443.2
Week 3	December 12, 2018	-1.2	442.0
Week 4	December 19, 2018	-0.5	441.5
Week 5	December 28, 2018	0.0	441.4
Week 6	January 4, 2019	0.0	441.4
Week 7	January 9, 2019	-1.7	439.7
Week 8	January 16, 2019	-2.7	437.1
Week 9	January 24, 2019	8.0	445.0
Week 10	January 31, 2019	0.9	445.9
Week 11	February 6, 2019	1.3	447.2
Week 12	February 13, 2019	3.6	450.8
Week 13	February 21, 2019	3.7	454.5
Week 14	February 27, 2019	-8.6	445.9
Week 15	March 6, 2019	7.1	452.9
Week 16	March 13, 2019	-3.9	449.1
Week 17	March 20, 2019	-9.6	439.5
Week 18	March 27, 2019	2.8	442.3
Week 19	April 3, 2019	7.2	449.5
Week 20	April 10, 2019	7.0	456.5
Week 21	April 17, 2019	-1.4	455.2
Week 22	April 24, 2019	5.5	460.1
Week 23	May 1, 2019	9.9	470.6
Week 24	May 8, 2019	-4.0	466.6
Week 25	May 15, 2019	5.4	472.0
Week 26	May 22, 2019	4.7	476.8
Week 27	May 30, 2019	-0.3	476.5
Week 28	June 5, 2019	6.8	483.3
Week 29	June 12, 2019	2.2	485.5
Week 30	June 19, 2019	-3.1	482.4
Week 31	June 26, 2019	-12.8	469.6
Week 32	July 3, 2019	-1.1	468.5
Week 33	July 10, 2019	-9.5	459.0
Week 34	July 17, 2019	-3.1	455.9
Week 35	July 24, 2019	-10.8	445.1
Week 36	July 31, 2019	-8.5	436.5
Week 37	August 7, 2019	2.4	438.9
Week 38	August 14, 2019	1.6	440.5

It's hard to believe that not too long ago, total US crude oil inventory was significantly higher.

I believe that a few months ago (?), the EIA removed "oil in pipelines" as part of the inventory figure, but I could be wrong on that. If they did, to what extent the impact was, I certainly do not know. But by now, this should be water under the bridge, to coin a phrase.

Those weekly drops of 12.8 million barrels (June 26); 9.5 million barrels (July 10); and, 8.5 million barrels the following week (July 24) certainly make one wonder, though.