Weekly EIA data:
- US crude oil inventories increased by 2.4 million bbls from the previous week.
- US crude oil in storage now stands at 416.2 million bbls, 8% below the five-year average.
- US crude oil imports averaged 6.2 million bbls per day, decreased by 0.5 million bbls per day from the previous week; crude oil imports averaged 6.2 million bbls per day
- US refiners are operating at 87.7% of their operable capacity last week; no sense of urgency;
- Distillate inventories decreased by 2.8 million bbls; 17% below their five-year average;
- Jet fuel supplied was up 24.5% compared with same four-week period last year;
Distillate fuel inventories:
I'm seeing a bullish report for oil/gas investors. Total stocks including SPR down by 5 million barrels. Net imports (line 33) of about 9 million barrels. This report continues the trend of weekly reports.
ReplyDeleteI track inventories because everyone else does, but in the big scheme of things, inventories seem not to matter a whole lot. I don't think anyone really knows what drives the price and it's a fool's errand to try to predict the price of oil.
DeleteWith regard to imports, we need to know a lot more than just the overall import number.
Where is imported oil going? To Boston to make electricity right now?
What kind of oil is it? US has glut of light oil. American refineries are optimized for heavy oil and need heavy oil to balance all that light oil we have. So, a lot of heavy oil being imported, both to balance all our light oil and to burn oil in Boston for electricity.
No one knows. EIA "lost" two hundred million bbls of oil last week and has now been working over-time to "correct" the books.
So, inventories are interesting to track, everyone does it. but except for distillates right now, nothing has me too excited.
But I certainly like the trend. LOL.