Crude Oil Inventory Update

In a recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), crude oil inventories dropped by 600,000 barrels for the week ending September 19. This follows a significant reduction of 9.3 million barrels the week prior, bringing the total stockpile to 414.8 million barrels. Notably, this figure is about 4% lower than the five-year average for this time of year.

The EIA’s release came shortly after data from the American Petroleum Institute (API), which indicated a decrease of 3.82 million barrels in crude oil stocks the previous day.

On the morning before the EIA’s data was made public, crude oil prices experienced a slight decline. By about 10:15 AM in New York, Brent crude was priced at $68.56 per barrel, reflecting a gain of approximately $0.93, or 1.38%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) saw an increase of about $0.97, which is around 1.53% per barrel during morning trading.

The latest EIA figures also showed a decrease of 1.1 million barrels in total motor gasoline supply, following a drop of 2.3 million barrels the week before. Interestingly, average daily gasoline production rose to 9.7 million barrels during this time. Additionally, inventories of intermediate distillates fell by 1.7 million barrels, while daily production of these increased to 5 million barrels. Despite a recent rise in distillation stock, it remains 8% below the five-year average for this season.

Over the past four weeks, total product supply has averaged around 20 million barrels per day, which is a slight increase of 0.9% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.8 million barrels per day in recent weeks, while supply in the distillation category decreased to about 3.6 million barrels.