EIA's Weekly Liquids Report - Jan 9

[dan_s]

Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending January 4, 2019

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 17.6 million barrels per day during the week ending January 4, 2019, which was 194,000 barrels per day less than the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 96.1% of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.4 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased last week, averaging 5.6 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.8 million barrels per day last week, up by 454,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 7.6 million barrels per day, 3.6% less than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 550,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 261,000 barrels per day.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 1.7 million barrels from the previous week. At 439.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 8% above the five year average for this time of year.
> Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 8.1 million barrels last week and are about 5% above the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories decreased while blending components inventories increased last week.
> Distillate fuel inventories increased by 10.6 million barrels last week and are about 5% below the five year average for this time of year.
> Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.9 million barrels last week and are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year.
>>Total commercial petroleum inventories increased last week by 13.3 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.5 million barrels per day, down by 0.7% from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.0 million barrels per day, down by 1.2% from the same period last year. Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.8 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, down by 1.3% from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was down 10.2% compared with the same four-week period last year.
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I'm not sure how much the Federal government shutdown impacts the accuracy of these reports. The American Petroleum Institute reported late Tuesday that U.S. crude supplies fell by 6.1 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 4, according to sources. The API also reportedly showed that gasoline stockpiles climbed by 5.5 million barrels, while distillate inventories surged higher by 10.2 million barrels. Just remember that these weekly reports are just estimates and are often quite a bit different than when actuals are reported. We only have actual data through October and it too will be revised several times.

Impact of the OPEC+ production cuts will not show up until late February.

[dan_s]

In my opinion, comparing inventories of crude oil and refined products to the 5-year average is extremely misleading because the market for U.S. refined products in much larger than it was 5 years ago. U.S. consumption of refined products (gasoline, diesel, heating oil, jet fuel, etc.) isn't much higher, but we are now exporting a lot more refined products.
> Over the last six weeks the U.S. has exported 5,496,000 barrels per day of refined products.
> During the same six weeks five years ago the U.S. exported 3,542,000 barrels per day of refined products.
> We also now export crude oil; 2,512,000 barrels per day over the last six weeks.

Just keep in mind that EIA is comparing apples to oranges when it talks about where we are in relation to the 5-year average.

BTW the world consume more than 7 million barrels per day of refined products than it did five years ago.