EIA Weekly Petroleum Report - Sept 13

[dan_s]

Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending September 8, 2023

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.8 million barrels per day during the week ending September 8, 2023, which was 177 thousand barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.
Refineries operated at 93.7% of their operable capacity last week.
Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.2 million barrels per day.
Distillate fuel production decreased last week, averaging 5.0 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.6 million barrels per day last week, increased by 812 thousand barrels per day from the previous week. < Hurricane activity can cause big week-to-week fluctuations in oil imports. My guess is that Hurricane Lee kept a lot of tankers from entering the Gulf of Mexico this week.
Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 7.0 million barrels per day, 13.0% more than the same four-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 899 thousand barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 185 thousand barrels per day.

> U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 4.0 million barrels from the previous week. At 420.6 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 5.6 million barrels from last week and are about 2% below the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline and blending components inventories increased last week.
> Distillate fuel inventories increased by 3.9 million barrels last week and are about 13% below the five year average for this time of year.
> Propane/propylene inventories increased 3.1 million barrels from last week and are 21% above the five year average for this time of year.
>> Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 10.4 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 21.0 million barrels a day, up by 6.6% from the same period last year.
Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.9 million barrels a day, up by 4.0% from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 5.4% from the same period last year.
Jet fuel product supplied was up 9.0% compared with the same four week period last year.
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On the surface this looks bearish, but WTI is up $0.49 to $89.33 at the time of this post.

The IEA monthly report is very bullish IMO, so maybe the paper traders are focusing on that.

[dan_s]

Looking at the details of the EIA weekly report shows why U.S. petroleum inventories increased during last week.
> Crude oil imports increased by 812,000 bpd
> Crude oil exports declined by 1,842,000 bpd
> Net change for crude oil + 2,654,000 bpd x 7 days = 18,578,000 barrels increase in crude oil inventories
> IEA also said that U.S. oil production increased by 100,000 bpd to 12,900,000 bpd, but the EIA's weekly production numbers are just WAGS

> Refined product imports declined by 161,000 bpd
> Refined product exports declined by 532,000 bpd
> Net change for refined products inventories was 371,000 bpd x 7 days = 2,597,000 bbls increase

Tropical Storm activity disrupts tanker activity and can cause big swings in petroleum inventories from week to week.

At any point in time, it is very difficult to know how much oil and refined products are stored above ground and on tankers. All we know for sure now is that demand for oil-based products exceeds supply by quite a bit; at least 2.5 million barrels per day.