Despite Record SPR Releases, Commercial Crude Oil Inventories Continue To Fall; Gasoline Inventories Fell -- November 2, 2022

Others understand this; I don't. But until provided a definitive explanation by an EIA expert (see "Focus on Fracking" -- weekly updates), I will go with this:

Gasoline inventories:

• combination of
• production
• demand
• from below:

• Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels from last week and are about 6% below the five-year average for this time of year.
• Finished gasoline inventories increased, but blending components inventories decreased last week.

• If I understand this correctly, refiners were able to keep pace with refining "finished gasoline" but supply chain issues (or something else) or gasoline demand resulted in a decrease of blending components, resulting in an overall decrease in overall gasoline inventories
• see EIA's definition and explanation here;
• over a seven day period in Portland, OR, this past week, it appeared regular gasoline increeased in price by about 10%, from $5.00 to $5.50; just an anecdotal observation

Today:

EIA data today, link here:

• US commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 3.1 million barrels from the previous week.
• At 436.8 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 3% below the five-year average for this time of year.
• Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels from last week and are about 6% below the five-year average for this time of year.
• Finished gasoline inventories increased, but blending components inventories decreased last week.
• Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.4 million barrels last week and are about 19% below the five-year average for this time of year.
• Propane/propylene inventories increased by 1.2 million barrels from last week and are 4% above the five year average for this time of year.
• Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 0.7 million barrels last week.

From yesterday:

The tea leaves certainly suggest we could see significantly higher WTI prices tomorrow. 

WTI has been creeping up all evening. Currently up 1.4%; up $1.19; trading at $89.56.

This is the API data that has some folks in Washington very, very nervous.