EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report - Nov 27

[dan_s]

Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending November 22, 2024

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.3 million barrels per day during the week ending November 22, 2024, which was 67 thousand barrels per day more than the previous week’s average. < Profit margins on refined products have increased per HFI Research.
Refineries operated at 90.5% of their operable capacity last week.
Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 9.7 million barrels per day.
Distillate fuel production increased last week, averaging 5.1 million barrels per day. < Demand for home heating oil will spike over the next few days. I worked for Hess for 18 years. We sold a lot of heating oil in the Northeast and each year homeowners put off filling their tanks until the first real winter weather arrived.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.1 million barrels per day last week, decreased by 1.6 million barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.6 million barrels per day, 5.5% more than the same four-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 636 thousand barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 144 thousand barrels per day.

Inventories:
> U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 1.8 million barrels from the previous week. At 428.4 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 5% below the five year average for this time of year.
> Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 3.3 million barrels from last week and are about 3% 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 0.4 million barrels last week and are about 5% below the five year average for this time of year.
> Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.0 million barrels from last week and are 9% above the five year average for this time of year.
>> Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 1.8 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.4 million barrels a day, up by 1.0% from the same period last year.
Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.8 million barrels a day, up slightly from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 3.4% from the same period last year.
Jet fuel product supplied was up 3.3% compared with the same four-week period last year.
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Bottomline: The Big 3 (crude oil, gasoline and distillates) inventories in the U.S. and the OECD countries remain at lower than normal levels, especially when measured on days of demand, which we discussed in yesterday's webinar. As tight as the global oil market is today combined with all of the geopolitical "noise", oil prices should be higher.

[Petroleum economist]

Dan, Oil volumes in tanks are indeed low. 17 M barrel below 2023 and 2019-2023 average levels.

[dan_s]

Plus, we use more oil-based fuels and other products than we did five years ago.

All raw materials inventories should be measured on current and future demand.