EIA Weekly Petroleum Report - Dec 30

[dan_s]

Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending December 25, 2020

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 14.3 million barrels per day during the week ending December 25, 2020 which was 273,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.
Refineries operated at 79.4% of their operable capacity last week. < Utilization rate should be over 85% this time of year.
Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 9.2 million barrels per day.
Distillate fuel production increased last week, averaging 4.6 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.3 million barrels per day last week, down by 238,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 5.7
million barrels per day, 14.4% less than the same four-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 601,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 619,000 barrels per day.

> U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 6.1 million barrels from the previous week. At 493.5 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 11% above the five year average for this time of year.
> Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 1.2 million barrels last week and are about 1% above the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories increased while blending components inventories decreased last week.
> Distillate fuel inventories increased by 3.1 million barrels last week and are about 6% above the five year average for this time of year.
> Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 6.4 million barrels last week and are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year. < Bullish for NGL prices.
> Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 14.9 million barrels last week. < Second double digit decline in a row.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 19.1 million barrels a day, down by 6.4% from the same period last year.
Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 7.9 million barrels a day, down by 13.2% from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.8 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 0.3% from the same period last year.
Jet fuel product supplied was down 31.8% compared with the same four-week period last year.
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In the 15 minutes following the report's release, WTI moved $0.80/bbl higher.

[dan_s]

Important stat from the EIA detailed report: Total U.S. petroleum liquids (not including the SPR) peaked at 1.461 Billion barrels on July 3 and has declined to 1.342 Billion barrels on Dec 25. Still high, but nowhere near "glut". I'm not 100% sure, but I think this includes NGLs, which definitely justifies the higher inventory since the U.S. has become the leader by a wide margin in NGLs over the last few years.

Also, Days of Supply are back to near normal levels of 30 days of supply
34.7 for crude oil
29.8 for gasoline
30.0 for jet fuel < down because refiners aren't making much jet fuel these days and it can be blended back into distillates
40.1 for all distillates < primarily diesel and home heating oil