EIA Weekly Petroleum Report - May 12

[dan_s]

Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending May 7, 2021

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.0 million barrels per day during the week ending May 7, 2021 which was 223,000 barrels per day less than the previous week’s average.
Refineries operated at 86.1% of their operable capacity last week. < Needs to increase to over 90% by the end of May to meet the surge in gasoline and diesel demand after the Colonial Pipeline gets back online.
Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 9.6 million barrels per day.
Distillate fuel production increased last week, averaging 4.7 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.5 million barrels per day last week, up by 37,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 5.7 million barrels per day, 7.6% more than the same four-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 936,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 208,000 barrels per day. < Look for imports of transportation fuels to go up because of Colonial Pipeline hack job.

> U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 0.4 million barrels from the previous week. At 484.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 2% below the five year average for this time of year.
> Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 0.4 million barrels last week and are about 1% below the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories decreased while blending components inventories increased last week.
> Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 1.7 million barrels last week and are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year.
> Propane/propylene inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels last week and are about 17% below the five year average for this time of year.
>> Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 3.9 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 19.1 million barrels a day, up by 23.0% from the same period last year.
Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.9 million barrels a day, up by 41.3% from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 4.1 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 22.9% from the same period last year.
Jet fuel product supplied was up 107.5% compared with the same four-week period last year.
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MY TAKE: The decline in crude oil inventories was less than expected, but demand for refined products has clearly snapped back to pre-pandemic levels for everything except jet fuel. Note that all refined product inventories are now below the 5-year averages and we use a lot more of these vital products than we did five years ago. The Colonial Pipeline "Hack Job" is going to impact these EIA reports for several weeks. The fact that it only took a few days to cause significant gasoline and diesel shortages along the East Coast shows how vulnerable our infrastructure is. Inflation and geopolitical risk are going to drive up the price of oil from here. We need to call a truce on the "War Against Pipelines", which is incredibly irresponsible.