US Retail Sales Surged In January, 2021 -- The Initial 5.3% Estimate Was Revised Upward To 7.6% -- March 17, 2021

Weekly EIA petroleum report: link here. 

• weekly US crude oil in storage increased by 2.4 million bbls;
  
• US crude oil in storage goes over 500.8 million bbls, 6% above the five-year average;
  
• refiners operating at 76.1% operable capacity;
  
• distillate fuel inventories increased by  0.3 million; distillate inventories at 2% below five-year average
  
• jet fuel supplied was down 36.2% compared with same four-week period last year;
  

Shale conundrum: from Rigzone. 

Shale’s newfound prudence after last year’s crash is putting producers in the unusual situation of reducing oil output just as prices surge.

More focused than ever on keeping spending in check, shale drillers haven’t been boring new wells fast enough to keep up with output declines in older ones. So, next month, their combined production will edge lower by 47,000 barrels a day to about 7.46 million, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s despite an oil price jump of more than 30% this year.

The impact of the coronavirus on energy consumption was so bad last year that several heavily indebted shale producers went under after years of being bankrolled by Wall Street. Now, producers don’t seem to be in a rush to start another boom, and their backers aren’t either. That’s good news for Saudi Arabia, which has sought to bring prices up without unleashing a new supply glut.

“We are still observing only about 50% of last year’s rig count activity,” EIA analyst Jozef Lieskovsky said by email. “With such a low rig count, even with the increased productivity, production declines in all regions are possible.”

Retail sales: another non-story. Link here. Did anyone even see this? 

Revisions published Tuesday now show retail sales in January increased 7.6% over the prior month compared to initial estimates of a 5.3% increase, ... so this 2.3% upward revision to January's data would've challenged just about any month's report to look good on a headline basis. 

Let alone a report hurt by historically disruptive weather and fading fiscal stimulus. 

"When you have trillions in stimulus going out the door and into consumer pockets at various points, sales will tend to be lumpy." And so strange comps are worth keeping in mind if we start to see retail sales figures go haywire in March or April.