Does Anybody Really Care Any More? Except For Gasoline Demand, Not Much Changed Week-Over-Week -- September 24, 2020

Gasoline demand: oh-oh -- link here: if I had only one metric to track the health of the US economy, and I can argue that gasoline demand is a leading indicator.

Jobless report: holds steady at 900K. Link here. 

Weekly EIA petroleum report, link here.

• US crude oil in storage decreased by 1.6 million bbls -- inconsequential.
  
• US crude oil in storage: 494.4 million bbls
  
• US crude oil in storage remains about 13% above the already-fat five-year average
• US refineries are operating at 74.8% capacity, down another percent from last week; wow; that may start to explain the reason the price of gasoline is jumping;
  
• US crude oil imports average 5.2 million bopd, up a bit from last week; imports  now averaging about 24.2% less than same four-week period last year (2019) (it was 20% last week)
  
• distillate production decreased last week; over the past four weeks, down by 8.2% from same period last year
  
• jet fuel supplied was down 45.8% compared with same four-week period last year; unchanged from last report
  

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 88	August 12, 2020	-4.5	514.1
Week 89	August 19, 2020	-1.6	512.5
Week 90	August 26, 2020	-4.7	507.8	15%
Week 91	September 2, 2020	-9.4	498.4	14%
Week 92	September 10, 2020	2.0	500.5	14%
Week 93	September 16, 2020	-4.4	496.0	14%
Week 94	September 23, 2020	-1.6	494.4	13%

Jet fuel:

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 18	July 15, 2020	-51.90%
Week 19	July 22, 2020	-47.70%
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 25	September 2, 2020	-47.10%
Week 26	September 10, 2020	-45.10%
Week 27	September 16, 2020	-45.60%
Week 28	September 23, 2020	-45.80%

Distillates:

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%

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 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%
Week 12	June 3, 2020	6.2	-1.000	-18.300%
Week 13	June 10, 2020	6.4	0.000	-13.300%
Week 19	July 22, 2020	5.9	0.373	-13.500%
Week 20	July 29, 2020	5.1	-0.800	-13.600%
Week 21	August 5, 2020	6.0	0.900	-18.100%
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%