The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 5.267 million barrels in the week ending October 30. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by a staggering 2.031 million barrels.
Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost more than 64 million barrels over the last 29 weeks, and 12 million over this year, according to API data, which has been kept in check in part thanks to draws from the SPR.
For the week ending October 30, 400,000 barrels of crude oil left the SPR to aid commercial inventories, bringing the total inventory held in the SPR down to 282.2 million barrels—a level that is 432 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 23 rose to 13.992 million bpd, up from 13.269 million bpd in the week prior, and up 348,000 bpd from a year ago.
At 4:25 pm ET on Wednesday, Brent crude was trading down on the day at $104.32 (-0.43%). Brent is trading down roughly $10 per barrel from this time last week.
WTI was also trading slightly up on the day, by $0.22 per barrel (+0.23%) at $97.24, which is down roughly $3 per barrel since this time last week.
Gasoline inventories rose by 1.427 million during the week ending October 30. In the week prior, gasoline inventories rose by 2.39 million barrels. In the week prior, gasoline inventories were 2% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories fell by 270,000 barrels compared to the 380,000 barrels gained in the week prior. Distillate inventories were already 10% 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 511,000 barrels after losing 453,000 barrels in the previous week.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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