I'm Thinking Of Taking The Day Off -- If So, I Will Update The Bakken Later This Afternoon -- Early Evening -- May 28, 2020

EIA, weekly petroleum report, link here:

• US crude oil inventories increased by a whopping 7.9 million bbls; consistent with yesterday's API data;
• US crude oil inventories now stand at 534.4 million bbls, about 13% above the already-fat five-year average for this time of the year
• and, look at this: imported surged -- up 2.0 million bbls per day from the previous week -- that's the equivalent of one VLCC unloading every day on the west coast
• even so, imports averaged about 16.5% less than the same four-week period last year, but that's going to change if the current trend continues; currently, imports are averaging about 6 million bpd;
• US refiners are operating at 71.3% capacity -- a bit higher than last week
• jet fuel supplied remains down about 70% compared with same four-week period last year

Thank goodness for the transparency of the internet. Despite all the political posturing, hand-wringing, and bragging about America's energy independence, with a glut of US oil, not only did US oil imports increase, they surged, and went from "negative" to extremely positive.

Despite all this, WTI and Brent slumped slightly, about 2/3rds of a percent; OPEC basket slumped 2.4%, suggesting that traders know that Saudi still has a boatload (pun intended) of VLCCs and ULCCs offshore China and the US.

Most troubling -- crude oil imports -- daily, huge swing in delta, and four week percentage change:

Crude Oil Imports
Week (week-over-week)	Week Ending	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 3	April 1, 2020	6.0	-0.070
Week 4	April 8, 2020	5.9	-0.173
Week 5	April 15, 2020	5.7	-0.194
Week 6	April 22, 2020	5.6	-0.700
Week 7	April 29, 2020	5.3	0.365	-19.700%
Week 8	May 6, 2020	5.7	0.410
Week 9	May 13, 2020	5.4	-0.321	-26.100%
Week 10	May 20, 2020	5.2	-0.194
Week 11	May 28, 2020	7.2	2.000	-16.400%

And then look where the imports are coming from, and with one exception increased across the board (Brazil was the exception). If I did the math correctly:

• Saudi Arabian oil imports: increased by almost 250%
• Iraqi oil imports: increased by almost 220%
• Mexican oil imports: increased by 23%
• Canada oil imports: increased by 11%

If the numbers aren't enough to get your attention, maybe the graph will. Saudi crude oil imports (into the US):

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 71	April 8, 2020	15.2	484.4
Week 72	April 15, 2020	19.2	503.6
Week 72	April 22, 2020	15.0	518.6
Week 73	April 29, 2020	9.0	527.6
Week 74	May 6, 2020	4.6	532.2
Week 75	May 13, 2020	-0.7	531.5
Week 76	May 20, 2020	-5.0	526.5
Week 77	May 28, 2020	7.9	534.4

Jet fuel delivered:

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

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US Weekly Crude Oil Supply In Days

Link here: dropped slightly, from 42.0 days to 41.3 days. I love the false precision. It's fairly easy to measure the amount of crude oil in storage -- at least, the source of the data should be relatively consistent. However, demand is, at best, an educated guess.