Energy
Crude Oil Stockpile Slips, Refining Runs Continue to Fall
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories decreased by 800,000 barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 502 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory remains near levels not seen at this time of year in at least the past 80 years.
Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 2.4 million barrels in the week ending January 29. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 3.6 million barrels in crude inventories.
Total gasoline inventories increased by 1.3 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 8.9 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 2.6% compared with the same period a year ago.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil traded lower by about 8% last week, closing at $31.00 a barrel on Friday. In early morning trading Wednesday, the price fell below $28.00, down about 9.5% for the week so far. In its monthly Oil Market Report published Tuesday, the International Energy Agency sees non-OPEC production falling by 600,000 barrels a day, primarily due to lower production from onshore U.S. wells. OPEC production continues to rise, with January production up 1.7 million barrels a day compared with January 2015.
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