Weekly Petroleum Report -- US -- EIA -- January 16, 2019

Updates

Later, 3:54 p.m. CT: see first comment and this link -- https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRSTUS1&f=W.  

Original Post 

The EIA weekly petroleum report is scheduled to be released today. Earlier, the EIA said their reports would not be delayed due to the partial government shutdown.

Link here.

Weekly US petroleum report, EIA:

• US crude oil inventories decreased by 2.7 million bbls
• WTI upon the news: up 9 cents, at $52.20 
• US crude oil inventories: now at 437.1 million bbls
• US crude oil inventories: now 8% above the 5-year average -- and remember, the 5-year average continues to increase; the Saudi surge, 2014 - 2016 certainly re-set the numbers
• refiners are operating at a 94.6% capacity; trending lower
• motor gasoline inventories about 6% above the 5-year average
• distillate fuel product supplied was down almost 9% from the same period last year
• jet fuel supplied was down almost 6% compared with same four-week period last year

Now, five minutes later, the price of WTI has turned red, down four cents. Movers and shakers apparently anticipated the report. Regardless of the draw (almost 3 million bbls) the fact that crude oil in storage, on a percentage basis, has actually increased over the past few weeks, is certainly disturbing for those hoping for a bull market in oil.

Re-balancing to 400 million bbls in storage:

Week	Date	Change w-o-w	In Storage	Weeks to RB to 350 Million Bbls
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9	N/A
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5	N/A
Week 2	December 6, 2018	-7.3	443.2	N/A
Week 3	December 12, 2018	-1.2	442.0	Never at this rate
Week 4	December 19, 2018	-0.5	441.5	Never at this rate
Week 5	December 28, 2018	0.0	441.4	Never at this rate
Week 6	January 4, 2019	0.0	441.4	Never at this rate
Week 7	January 9, 2019	-1.7	439.7	A long, long time
Week 8	January 16, 2019	-2.7	437.1	Won’t happen in my life time