U.S. Crude Oil Stocks Fall for Sixth Straight Week — Update

By Anthony Harrup

U.S. crude oil inventories fell for a sixth consecutive week, while product stocks rose as refineries increased their capacity use, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Commercial crude oil stocks excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve were down by 3.7 million barrels at 429.3 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 2 and were about 6% below the five-year average for the time of year, the EIA said.

Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted crude stockpiles would fall by 500,000 barrels.

Oil held in the SPR rose by 736,000 barrels to 375.8 million barrels. Oil stored at Cushing, Okla., the Nymex delivery hub, was up by 579,000 barrels at 30.4 million barrels. Refinery capacity use increased to 90.5% from 90.1% the previous week, against expectations in the Journal survey of a 0.7 percentage point rise.

Gasoline inventories rose by 1.3 million barrels last week to 225.1 million barrels and were 2% below the five-year average for the time of year. Gasoline stocks had been expected to fall by 1.3 million barrels. Gasoline demand fell by 282,000 barrels a day to a little under 9 million barrels a day.

Distillate fuel stocks increased by 949,000 barrels to 127.8 million barrels and were about 6% below the five-year average. Distillate stocks were expected to rise by 500,000 barrels.

Crude oil production rose by 100,000 barrels a day to a record 13.4 million barrels a day, according to the EIA, while a 729,000 barrels-a-day decline in crude imports to 6.2 million barrels a day was offset by a drop in crude exports to 3.6 million barrels a day from 4.9 million barrels a day the week before.

"I think we're at peak production in this area. I think the market is starting to understand that," said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president at BOK Financial. "I don't think our production numbers will go much higher from here. They're not going to come off a lot right away, but they will."

In its Short Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday, the EIA lowered its fourth-quarter crude production forecast to 13.4 million barrels a day from 13.5 million previously, with full-year output seen at 13.2 million barrels a day. For 2025, the EIA expects U.S. production to rise to 13.7 million barrels a day.

 
Change in U.S. oil inventories for the week ended Aug. 2: 
 
                   Crude       Gasoline      Distillates         Refinery Use 
EIA data:          -3.7           1.3            0.9                  0.4 
Forecast:          -0.5          -1.3            0.5                  0.7 
 

Note: Numbers in millions of barrels, with the exception of refinery use, which is in percentage points.

Write to Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 07, 2024 11:56 ET (15:56 GMT)

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