Crude Oil Storage Report - June 15

[dan_s]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories fell by 0.933 million barrels in the week ended June 10. Market analysts expected a crude-stock decline of 2.26 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a supply increase of 1.518 million barrels.

Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the key delivery point for Nymex crude, rose by 0.904 million barrels last week, the EIA said. Total U.S. crude oil inventories stood at 531.5 million barrels as of last week, which the EIA considered to be “historically high levels for this time of year.”

The report also showed that gasoline inventories decreased by 2.625 million barrels, compared to expectations for a drop of 0.243 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles rose by 0.786 million barrels, compared to forecasts for a decline of 0.249 million.
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A few things to keep in mind:
1. Storage inputs include imports. A topical storm the previous week kept a lot of tankers away from ports, so some of the inputs for the week ending June 10 were from tankers getting back on scheduled deliveries.
2. EIA storage numbers include an estimated 100 million barrels of pipeline fill and field level storage. Obviously, these are just SWAGs since they have no accurate way to know field level storage at any point in time.
3. Trends in the report are more important than the weekly numbers. 5 of the last 6 weeks, EIA has reported a decline in crude oil inventories. See chart at the link below.
http://www.oilandgas360.com/analytics/c ... f633dcb7c3