The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 2.031 million barrels in the week ending October 23. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by a staggering 4.93 million barrels.
Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost more than 58 million barrels over the last 28 weeks, but US crude inventories are still only 7 million 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 23, 100,000 barrels of crude oil left the SPR to aid commercial inventories, bringing the total inventory held in the SPR down to 282.6 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 16 slipped to 13.269 million bpd, down from 13.679 in the week prior, and down 360,000 bpd from a year ago.
At 4:17 pm ET on Wednesday, Brent crude was trading down on the day at $114.25 (-1.35%). Brent is trading up more than $5 per barrel from this time last week.
WTI was also trading down on the day, by $2.36 per barrel (-2.29%) at $100.51, which is down roughly $1 per barrel since this time last week.
Gasoline inventories rose by 2.39 million during the week ending October 23. In the week prior, gasoline inventories fell by 2 million barrels. In the week prior, gasoline inventories were 5% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories rose by 380,000 barrels compared to the 2.6 million barrels lost in the week prior. Distillate inventories were already 9% 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—lost 453,000 barrels after gaining 900,000 barrels in the previous week.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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