EIA Weekly Petroleum Report - Dec 6

[dan_s]

Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending December 1, 2023

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.2 million barrels per day during the week ending December 1, 2023, which was 179 thousand barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.
Refineries operated at 90.5% of their operable capacity last week. < They've got a lot of work to do to keep up with distillate demand.
Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 9.5 million barrels per day.
Distillate fuel production increased last week, averaging 5.1 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.5 million barrels per day last week, increased by 1.7 million barrels per day from the previous week.
Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.6 million barrels per day, 6.4% more than the same four-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 689 thousand barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 82 thousand barrels per day.

> U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 4.6 million barrels from the previous week. At 445.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 1% below the five year average for this time of year. < Inventory decline seems strange considering the big increase in crude oil imports???
> Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 5.4 million barrels from last week and are about 1% below the five year average for this time of year. Both finished gasoline and blending components inventories increased last week.
> Distillate fuel inventories increased by 1.3 million barrels last week and are about 13% below the five year average for this time of year.
> Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.8 million barrels from last week and are 18% above the five year average for this time of year.
>> Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 1.7 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 19.7 million barrels a day, down by 2.1% from the same period last year.
Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.5 million barrels a day, up by 1.1% from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 0.5% from the same period last year.
Jet fuel product supplied was up 1.8% compared with the same four-week period last year.
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MY TAKE: Nothing here to justify the dip in the oil price this morning. I think traders were spooked by the API report that showed big inventory declines. Keep in mind the EIA reports during the holiday season are often "weird". We obviously burned through a lot of gasoline during the week of Thanksgiving. Jet fuel demand should also be very high. With computers doing the majority of trading these days, commodity price volatility (both ways) can be more extreme.

[Fraser921]

Did traders take it down from 92? Why don't users buy the stuff at 69 since its on sale?

[dan_s]

The "Users" are the refiners that benefit from lower oil prices.

[dan_s]

MAIN TAKEAWAY by Anas Alhajji

Crude oil inventories declined, following historical trends but remained at comfortable levels. Crude oil inventories are higher than that of last year for the same period by 31.1 mb. < Keep in mind that inventories were way below the 5-year average at this time last year.

Gasoline inventories increased significantly and are now at a higher level than that of last year.

These numbers, in addition to lower demand growth and rising inventories in Asia (especially in China), are counter to our earlier expectations of a bullish fourth quarter. Slower demand than expected means a switch from the bullish scenario to the recession/low economic growth scenario. This latter scenario was considered in our outlook, but it was not our main scenario. The good news is that we caught the changes in trends early and we changed our views accordingly.

Supposedly, the EIA has solved the high adjustment numbers and the large swings, but the data show otherwise, the adjustment numbers and the large swings remain very high. For last week, the adjustment was about -9.8 mb! < EIA numbers are basically their best "guess". Over time the self adjust, but during the holiday season the are even more WAGs that usual.