US Crude Oil Inventories Up A Whopping 3.6 Million Bbls; Now More Than 7% Over The Five-Year Average

More than 7% over the five-year average -- and the five-year average includes 2014 - 2016 when Saudi opened the spigots and dumped as much as oil on the market as they could to kill the US shale sector. 

Link here.

• US crude oil inventories: increased by another whopping 3.6 million bbls
• inventories now stand at 450.5 million bbls -- breaking through 450 million bbls -- wow
• inventories now 7% above the five-year average for this time of the year -- wow
• WTI, right now, holds steady, drops about 50 cents; barely holding above $51
• refinery operating capacity at: 95.6% -- fairly high, considering
• both gasoline and distillate fuel production slightly higher than their 10.0 and 5.0 - million benchmark
• imports slightly more than same time last year -- refineries need heavy oil to balance light oil; California needs imported oil
• jet fuel produced: up 4.1% compared with same time last year
• by the way, that "five-year average" continues to increase. One needs to look at the historical "norm" -- which for me is 350 million bbls -- 450 is 28.5% greater than the 350-million benchmark

Number of weeks it will take to "re-balance" at this rate:

Week	Date	Change w-o-w	In Storage	Weeks To RB
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9	N/A
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5	N/A

When we started following the first "re-balancing act" we started with 529 million bbls of oil in US inventory. So, we're well below that "529" but at 447 million last week and 450 million this week, we are .... well ... trending in the wrong direction.

And the problem no one is talking about: no matter how low the price of oil goes, the shale operators have no choice but to keep putting oil in the pipelines -- they must meet their contractual obligations.