Crude Oil Inventories Rise, Gasoline Supplies Drop

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 1.6 million barrels last week and remain in the upper half of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the EIA’s measure of consumption) averaged more than 8.3 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down about 1.5% from the same period a year ago.

Distillate inventories rose by 1.4 million barrels last week but remain below the lower limit of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged more than 3.6 million barrels a day over the past four weeks. That was down 4.3% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production totaled 4.6 million barrels a day last week, roughly flat with the prior week.

Tuesday evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 1.2 million barrels in the week ending February 28, together with a drop of 1.2 million barrels in gasoline supplies and a decrease of 270,000 barrels in distillate supplies. For the same period, Platts estimated a rise of 1.5 million barrels in crude inventories, a decline of 1.5 million barrels in gasoline inventories and a drop of 1.5 million barrels in distillate inventories.

API also noted that crude inventories held at the main U.S. pricing hub at Cushing, Okla., dropped 2.6 million barrels in the past week. Crude prices closed at $103.33 on Tuesday and were trading down about 0.4% before the EIA report at around $102.73 a barrel. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price fell slightly to around $102.58 shortly after the report was released. The price differential between WTI and Brent has dropped to below $6 a barrel, the lowest spread level since October.

For the past week, crude imports averaged more than 7.1 million barrels a day, up about 75,000 barrels a day from the previous week. Refineries were running at 87.4% of capacity, with daily input of 15.2 million barrels a day, about 100,000 barrels less than the previous week’s total.

According to AAA, the current average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $3.464, up from $3.432 a week ago and $3.279 a month ago. Last year a gallon of regular cost $3.737 on average in the United States. Wednesday was the 26th consecutive day that the price of a gallon of gas has risen.