(Washington) Commercial crude oil reserves fell sharply in the United States last week, falling to the lowest since November 2014, as refining activity is in full swing, according to figures released Wednesday by the American Agency. Energy Information System (EIA).
Posted at 12:20 p.m.
During the week ended October 28, these commercial inventories fell by 3.1 million barrels while analysts bet on a small decline of 200,000 barrels. They had risen sharply the week before, also surprising analysts.
This decline in US crude reserves, which stood at 436.8 million barrels, is mainly due to the increase in refinery activity. They have ramped up their processing of crude as the maintenance season for these facilities ends before winter, said Andrew Lebow of Commodity Research Group.
“The increase in the volume of crude processed by refineries is the main explanation for the melting of oil inventories,” explained the analyst.
Refineries ran at 90.6% of their capacity against 88.9% a week earlier.
Demand for petroleum products also remained strong at 20.4 million barrels per day against 19.9 million a year ago.
Another factor, explaining the larger drawdown on inventories, crude production slowed slightly to 11.9 million barrels per day (-100,000 barrels compared to the week before).
“Basically, you have lower production and higher demand (refineries), which explains this drain on commercial reserves,” added Andrew Lebow.
Exports fell sharply (by 1.2 mbd), but they remain significant at 3.9 million barrels per day. The week before, they had jumped to a historic high of 5.1 mbd.
Crude imports remained stable at 6.2 million barrels per day.
Crude prices, which were in modest decline before the announcement of these figures, reacted strongly on the rise. Around 4 p.m. GMT, a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in January 2023 took 1.74% to 96.30 dollars.
A barrel of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for December delivery jumped 2.07% to $90.20.
Gasoline inventories fell by 1.3 million barrels, a reduction close to analysts’ estimates (-1 million).
This decline nevertheless occurs within the framework of a slight fall in demand (-271,000 bpd), “fairly traditional for this season of the year”, specified Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates.
Stocks of distilled products have recovered a little (+400,000 barrels) while the consensus of analysts polled by the Bloomberg agency expected a reduction of as much.
President Joe Biden’s administration continued to draw on strategic crude reserves, but less than the previous week. Some 1.9 million barrels were thus released on the market against 3.4 million the week before.