Thursday, October 15, 2020

EIA's Weekly Petroleum Report -- Big Story? The Decline In Distillate Inventories -- October 15, 2020

Updates

October 16, 2020: see first link. A reader provides the answer to my question (see below) regarding the huge decline in US distillate fuel inventories:

US distillates supplies fell by more this week because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of our domestic demand, rose by 307,000 barrels per day to 4,175,000 barrels per day, and because our exports of distillates rose by 258,000 barrels per day to 1,289,000 barrels per day, and because our imports of distillates fell by 70,000 barrels per day to 160,000 barrels per day ... 
... but even after this week's big inventory decrease, US distillate supplies at the end of the week were still 33.2% above the 123,501,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on October 11th, 2019.

Production was at a 3-year-low; largest draw since February 2003.

Original Post

Wow: maybe I'm misreading this, but if I'm reading this correctly, the big story this week in the EIA weekly petroleum report is the huge decline in distillate fuel inventories. 

I can only imagine this was the result of increased exports, but I don't know. Without an increase in exports, it's hard for me to believe that "production" plus "demand" was enough to drop inventories by that much. Normally we seen a range of +3 million to -3 million with a more narrow range of + 1.0 million bbls being the norm (?). In this report, week-over-week, the decline was a whopping 7.2 million bbls. Harvesting season? [Update: see first comment.]

EIA weekly petroleum report, link here:

  • US crude oil in storage: at 489.1 million bbls, about 11% above an already-fat five-year average;
  • US crude oil in storage decreased: decreased by 3.8 million bbls from the previous week
  • refiners operating at 75.1% of their operable capacity
  • imports: are averaging 15% less than the same four-week period last year

Re-balancing:

Week

Date of Report=

Change

Million Bbls Storage

Over/under 5-year average

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 84

July 15, 2020

-7.5

531.7

17%

Week 85

July 22, 2020

4.9

536.6

19%

Week 86

July 29, 2020

-10.6

526.0

17%

Week 87

August 5, 2020

-7.4

518.6

16%

Week 93

September 16, 2020

-4.4

496.0

14%

Week 94

September 23, 2020

-1.6

494.4

13%

Week 95

September 30, 2020

-2.0

492.4

 

Week 96

October 7, 2020

0.5

492.9

12%

Week 97

October 15, 2020

-3.8

489.1

11%

Distillate fuel:

Distillate Fuel Inventories




Week

Date of Report

Change in Millions

Relative to 5-Yr Avg

Week 1

August 26, 2020

1.40

24.0%

Week 2

September 2, 2020

-1.70

23.0%

Week 3

September 10, 2020

-1.70

20.0%

Week 4

September 16, 2020

3.50

22.0%

Week 5

September 23, 2020

-3.40

21.0%

Week 6

September 30, 2020

-3.20

21.0%

Week 7

October 7, 2020

-1.00

23.0%

Week 8

October 15, 2020

-7.20

19.0%

Crude oil imports:

Crude Oil Imports





Week (week-over-week)

Date of Report

Raw Data, millions of bbls

Change (millions of bbls)

Four-week period comparison

Week 0

March 11, 2029

6.4

0.174


Week 1

March 18, 2020

6.5

0.127


Week 2

March 25, 2020

6.1

-0.422


Week 13

June 10, 2020

6.4

0.000

-13.300%

Week 22

August 12, 2020

5.6

-0.389

-20.400%

Week 23

August 19, 2020

5.7

0.109

-21.700%

Week 24

August 26, 2020

5.9

0.185

-16.900%

Week 25

September 2, 2020

4.9

-1.000

-20.200%

Week 26

September 10, 2020

5.4

0.500

-17.900%

Week 27

September 16, 2020

5.0

-0.416

-20.100%

Week 28

September 23, 2020

5.2

0.160

-24.200%

Week 29

September 30, 2020

5.1

0.045

-21.600%

Week 30

October 7, 2020

5.7

0.600

-18.900%

Week 31

October 15, 2020

5.3

-0.447

-15.400%

Jet fuel delivered:

Jet Fuel Delivered, Change, Four-Week/Four-Week



Week

Date of Report

Change

Week 0

3/7/2020

-12.80%

Week 1

3/14/2020

-12.60%

Week 2

3/21/2020

-8.90%

Week 3

3/28/2020

-16.40%

Week 4

4/4/2020

-0.22%

Week 5

4/11/2020

-39.70%

Week 6

4/18/2020

-53.60%

Week 7

4/24/2020

-61.60%

Week 8

5/1/2020

-66.60%

Week 9

5/8/2020

-68.50%

Week 10

5/15/2020

-67.90%

Week 11

May 22, 2020

-66.60%

Week 20

July 29, 2020

-42.10%

Week 21

August 5, 2020

-40.90%

Week 22

August 12, 2020

-45.80%

Week 23

August 19, 2020

-47.60%

Week 24

August 26, 2020

-45.70%

Week 29

September 30, 2020

-46.10%

Week 30

October 7, 2020

-47.50%

Week 31

October 15, 2020

-41.80%


4 comments:

  1. in answer to your initial question,
    "our distillates supplies fell by more this week because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of our domestic demand, rose by 307,000 barrels per day to 4,175,000 barrels per day, and because our exports of distillates rose by 258,000 barrels per day to 1,289,000 barrels per day, and because our imports of distillates fell by 70,000 barrels per day to 160,000 barrels per day....but even after this week's big inventory decrease, our distillate supplies at the end of the week were still 33.2% above the 123,501,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on October 11th, 2019"

    production was at 3 year low; largest draw since February 2003..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Domestic demand? folks finally buying heating oil in anticipation of higher prices this winter? Agricultural demand?

      Delete
  2. oh, i don't know...i imagine there's some pre-winter stockpiling of heat oil going on, both on the part of distributors and consumers...we've had a few pretty cold spells, which reminds people what's ahead..

    ReplyDelete