US crude, gasoline stockpiles fall, distillates build, EIA says

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday that crude oil and gasoline stocks in the United States fell last week. This was due to stronger demand and increased exports. Meanwhile, distillate inventories rose. The EIA reported that crude inventories dropped by 3.2 millions barrels, to 419,000,000 barrels for the week ending July 18. This was double the expectation of analysts in a survey who expected a 1.6-million barrel draw.

The EIA reported that crude stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma's delivery hub, rose by 455,000 barges in the past week. The EIA reported that U.S. oil exports increased by 337,000 barrels a day (bpd), to 3.86 millions bpd. Meanwhile, net U.S. imports of crude fell by 740,000 barrels a day last week. Oil futures recovered from earlier losses after the higher-than-expected draw. Brent futures traded at $68.18 per barrel by 11:06 am EDT (1506 GMT), down 41 cents. U.S. West Texas intermediate futures dropped 43 cents to reach $64.88. Refinery crude production increased by 87,000 barrels a day and refinery utilization rate rose by 1.6 percentage point to 95.5%, the highest since June 2023. The Gulf Coast refinery hub's utilization rate reached a new high of 96.1%.

The EIA reported that gasoline stocks dropped by 1.7m barrels to 231.1m barrels in the past week, which is nearly twice as much as expected.

The product supplied of gasoline (a proxy for the demand) increased by 478,000 bpd, to 8,97 million bpd. The average product supply for the four-week period was 8.81 million BPD, down from 9.27 million BPD last year.

Bob Yawger is the director of energy futures for Mizuho. He cautioned that gasoline demand should be higher at this time of year.

He added that "gasoline demand in the summer driving season must be 9 million bpd to make the market really successful." The data shows that distillate stocks, which includes diesel and heating oil rose by 2.9 millions barrels last week, as opposed to forecasts of a 1.1-million barrel drop.

The increase in diesel supplies has helped to ease some of the recent panic about the shortages, said Phil Flynn. He is a senior analyst at Price Futures Group. (Reporting from Liz Hampton in Denver, and Stephanie Kelly in New York. Editing by Margueritachoy)

(source: Reuters)