- US crude oil in storage: 447.9 million bbls
- US crude oil in storage, week-over-week change: a meager increase of only 0.8 million bbls
- refiners operating at 90.6% capacity which is really low, and yet there was only a build of 0.8 million bbls; let's look at imports --
- imports: hmmm, interesting. Imports averaged almost 7 million bbls per day last week which is up by almost a million bbls per day from the previous week; but still, the four-week average is almost 20% less than this time last year. So, it is what it is. My hunch, a reader will help explain all this.
- Jet fuel production was up almost 3% compared with same four-week period last year
- despite the meager increase, WTI was down $1.03 after the report; but still above $58; one wonders if the Chevron's news brought WTI down; oilprice said the drop in WTI price was due to the "build," but, of course, that's ridiculous -- unless, of course, it's because analysts had expected a draw of 3 million bbls -- whatever --
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 43
|
September 18, 2019
|
1.1
|
417.1
|
Week 44
|
September 26, 2019
|
2.4
|
419.5
|
Week 45
|
October 2, 2019
|
3.1
|
422.6
|
Week 46
|
October 9, 2019
|
2.9
|
425.6
|
Week 47
|
October 17, 2019
|
9.3
|
434.9
|
Week 48
|
October 23, 2019
|
-1.7
|
433.2
|
Week 49
|
October 30, 2019
|
5.7
|
438.9
|
Week 50
|
November 6, 2019
|
7.9
|
446.8
|
Week 51
|
November 14, 2019
|
2.2
|
449.0
|
Week 52
|
November 20, 2019
|
1.4
|
450.4
|
Week 53
|
November 27, 2019
|
1.6
|
452.0
|
Week 54
|
December 4, 2019
|
-4.9
|
447.1
|
Week 55
|
December 11, 2019
|
0.8
|
447.9
|
i have no insight into why our refining throughput has remained so low...it seems like it's been running around 5% lower year over year for most of this year....once i thought it was due to the Venezuela embargo, but access to equivalent crude should have ironed itself out by now...there was also the Keystone shutdown, but that too is by the boards...& besides, they've been pulling crude out of the SPR to cover for that & the Saudi shortfall for a while now...
ReplyDeleteimports are just volatile based on the number of VLCCs and other large tankers that unload in any given week...a few 2 million barrel loads at once can throw a loop into the weekly stats....the 4 week average hasn't shown much change...
Thank you. I, too, noticed refiners operating at reduced capacity much of the past year == by about the very same amount you noted. It might be helpful to know more about individual refineries to give us an idea why.
DeleteYes, I keep forgetting about the size of tankers affecting weekly import numbers; four-week averages will be more important than ever.
But the refining thing is certainly interesting ... where does the EIA actually measure the "input"? Is it the number of bbls of crude oil simply entering the "facility"? We're talking capacity and it seems I've read somewhere the refiners have added a lot of storage over the last couple of years - preparing for record amount of oil that was going to be produced -- if capacity (storage; some refinery expansion) has increased, and even if the amount of oil entering the facility has stayed the same (or gone up a big) the percent of capacity available would decrease, if that makes sense.
The report reads "inputs" -- I assume it would depend at what point "inputs" are being measured.
the glossary at the back of the Petroleum Status Report defines it as follows:
ReplyDeleteRefinery Input, Crude Oil. Total crude oil (domestic plus foreign)
input to crude oil distillation units and other refinery processing units
(cokers, etc.).
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/wpsrall.pdf
I'm certainly at a loss to explain the relatively low capacity at which refiners are operating.
Delete