The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 328,000 barrels in the week ending August 14. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories rose by 9.072 million barrels on the back of increased imports, decreased exports, and a sizeable injection from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost just over 49 million barrels over the last eighteen weeks, with US crude inventories up 1.88 million for the year, according to API data, kept in check by draws from the SPR.
For the week ending August 14, another 5.3 million barrels left the SPR to aid commercial inventories, bringing the new total inventory held in the SPR to 293.4 million barrels—a level that is 438 million barrels shy of maximum capacity.
The generally accepted operational minimum for oil in the SPR is between 250-300 million barrels, below which the reserve may find it difficult to pump and process oil efficiently.
US production for the week ending August 7 rose to 13.805 million bpd, up from 13.804 in the week prior, and up 521,000 bpd from a year earlier.
At 3:19 pm ET on Tuesday, Brent crude was trading up on the day at $91.10 (+0.25%), a roughly $2 per barrel gain week over week.
WTI was also trading up on the day, by $0.45 per barrel (+0.53%) at $85.90, up about $1.70 per barrel from this time last week.
Gasoline inventories rose this week by 1.076 million barrels in the week ending August 14. In the week prior, gasoline inventories fell by 1.531 million barrels. In the week prior, gasoline inventories were already 6% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.
Distillate inventories fell by 2.797 million barrels, on top of the 596,000-barrel loss in the week prior. Distillate inventories were 12% below the five-year average heading into this reporting period, the latest EIA data shows.
Cushing inventory—the inventory kept at the delivery hub for the WTI Crude futures contract—fell by 1.439 million barrels over the reporting period after rising by 1.571 million barrels in the week prior.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
