The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 4.93 million barrels in the week ending October 16. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by a staggering 11.12 million barrels.
Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost more than 56 million barrels over the last 27 weeks, but US crude inventories are still only 5 million barrels below where they were at the beginning of the year, according to API data, kept in check in part thanks to draws from the SPR.
For the week ending October 16, 300,000 barrels of crude oil left the SPR to aid commercial inventories, dragging the total inventory held in the SPR down to 282.7 million barrels—a level that is still 431 million barrels shy of maximum capacity.
The generally accepted operational minimum for oil in the SPR is between 250-300 million barrels, below which the reserve may find it difficult to pump and process oil efficiently.
US production for the week ending Oct 9 slipped to 13.679 million bpd, down from 13.979 in the week prior, and up 43,000 bpd from a year earlier.
At 4:21 pm ET on Wednesday, Brent crude was trading down on the day at $108.96 (-0.54%). Brent is trading up $3 per barrel from this time last week.
WTI was also trading down on the day by $2.75 per barrel (-2.63%) at $101.79, which is up roughly $6 per barrel since this time last week.
Gasoline inventories fell by 2 million during the week ending October 14. In the week prior, gasoline inventories rose by 1.1 million barrels. In the week prior, gasoline inventories were 4% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories fell 2.6 million barrels on top of the 1.5 million barrels lost in the week prior. Distillate inventories were already 12% below the five-year average heading into this reporting period, the latest EIA data shows.
Cushing inventory—the inventory kept at the delivery hub for the WTI Crude futures contract—gained 900,000 barrels after gaining 1.823 million barrels in the previous week.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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