The Commodities Feed: Bearish EIA report | articles
The EIA’s weekly inventory report released yesterday was bearish, with US oil and gasoline inventories rising unexpectedly over the week. US commercial crude oil inventories (excluding SPR) increased by 3.2m barrels for the week ended on 22 March 2024, compared to the market expectation of a decline of around 0.7m barrels. However, the build was less than the increase of 9.3m barrels that API reported a day earlier. When factoring in the SPR, the build was even higher, with total US crude oil inventories increasing by around 3.9m barrels. The increase was predominantly driven by stronger crude imports, which grew from 6.3m b/d to 6.7m b/d over the reporting week. Total US commercial crude oil stocks stand at 448.2m barrels, just 1% below the five-year average. Meanwhile, oil inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma rose 2.1m barrels to 33.5m barrels, this was the largest weekly build reported in over a year.
In refined products, stocks of gasoline increased by 1.3m barrels, against a forecast for a drawdown of 1.7m barrels. However, distillate fuel oil stockpiles fell by 1.2m barrels last week, compared to the expected build of 0.2m barrels. Meanwhile, refineries operated at 88.7% of their capacity, up from 87.8% in the previous week, but 1.6% lower than the same period last year.
