U.S. crude oil stockpiles edged lower last week but gasoline inventories posted a larger-than-expected build on weakened demand, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters
Crude inventories USOILC=ECI fell by 446,000 barrels in the week to July 15 to 426.6 million barrels, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.4 million-barrel rise.
Demand figures rebounded from the previous week’s sharp fall, and product supplied rose to 21 million barrels per day. However, gasoline demand continued to sag, and supply of that product over the last four weeks was 8.7 million bpd, or about 7.6% lower than the same time a year ago.
“You don’t really don’t want to be going backwards on gasoline in the middle of the summer,” said Robert Yawger, executive director of energy futures at Mizuho.
U.S. gasoline stocks USOILG=ECI rose by 3.5 million barrels in the week to 228.4 million barrels, compared with expectations for a 71,000-barrel rise.
“The demand destruction is only still two weeks but sufficient to say it’s there. That’s the big takeaway,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.
Oil prices were lower on the data. U.S. crude CLc1 lost 1.8% to $102.35 a barrel while Brent LCOc1 dropped 1.1% to $106.09 a barrel.
Refinery crude runs USOICR=ECI fell by 321,000 bpd in the last week, EIA said. Refinery utilization rates USOIRU=ECI fell by 1.2 percentage points in the week, but refiners are still running at 93.7% of overall capacity.
Distillate stockpiles USOILD=ECI, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.3 million barrels.
Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub USOICC=ECI rose by 1.1 million barrels last week, EIA said.
Net U.S. imports of crude USOICI=ECI were down sharply week, falling by 891,000 bpd, a move almost entirely attributed to a surge in crude exports to 3.8 million bpd.
