U.S. crude stockpiles rose for a sixth straight week last week, reaching their highest in 20 months.
Inventories rose by 4.14M barrels during the week ended Jan. 27. The Energy Information Administration, said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. The build was above the 0.376M forecast by industry analysts and compared with the rise of 0.533M reported by the EIA during the previous week to Jan 20.
Total crude build of 34.5 million barrels has been seen over the past six weeks. Along with the confirmation that OPEC+ will continue its plan to cut production by 2 million barrels a day through the end of 2023. Domestic crude stocks reached over 450 million barrels. Seeing that amount for the first time since June 2021 due to subdued refining activity and higher imports. Refining activity remains low due to the lingering effects of December’s winter storm and seasonal maintenance.
The EIA report also showed weekly inventory increases of 2.6 million barrels for gasoline. Coupled with a and 2.3-million-barrel jump for distillates. Analyst survey forecast gasoline stockpiles to be unchanged and a supply decline of 1.3 million barrels for distillates. Crude stocks at the Nymex delivery hub in Cushing, Okla. climbed by 2.3 million barrels, while the Strategic Petroleum Reserve remained unchanged at 371.6 million barrels 37% lower than this time last year.
Gasoline and Distillates
The U.S. imported 7.28 million barrels per day of crude oil last week, increasing by 1.378 million bpd from the previous week. However, crude oil exports decreased by 1.215 million bpd to 3.49 million bpd. The U.S. also imported an average of 501,000 bpd of total motor gasoline and 313,000 bpd of distillate fuels. At the same time, the country exported 926,000 bpd of finished gasoline and 981,000 bpd of distillates, totaling 9.27 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum products. The supply of gasoline to the market rose by 348,000 bpd to 8.49 million barrels per day, compared to the previous week. Implied demand for gasoline in 2023 is 1.5% lower than in 2022.
