The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 6.556 million barrels in the week ending March 13—a surprise build of significant magnitude. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories shed 1.7 million barrels. Analysts had expected a draw of 600,000 barrels in the current reporting period.
Inventories in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) have stayed at 415.4 million barrels for multiple weeks in a row as of the week ending March 13. This is 310.1 million barrels shy of maximum capacity.
US production fell again, by 18,000 bpd, sinking to an average of 13.678 million bpd for the week ending March 6, according to the latest EIA data. This is 103,000 bpd more than this same time last year.
At 3:06 pm ET, Brent crude was trading up on the day at $103.40 (+3.16%). Brent is up roughly $12 per barrel, up from this time last week, with stalled tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and large production losses in Iraq, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. WTI was also trading up on the day, by $2.45 per barrel (+2.63%) at $95.96.
Gasoline inventories fell this week, shrinking by 4.6 million barrels in the week ending March 13. In the week prior, gasoline inventories fell by 1.8 million barrels. As of last week, gasoline inventories were 5% above the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories sank by 1.4 million barrels, after decreasing by 2.3 million barrels in the week prior. Distillate inventories were 2% below the five-year average as of the week ending March 6, the latest EIA data shows.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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