According to data calculated by API and closely followed by energy traders, US oil stocks decreased by 1 million 347 thousand barrels in the one-week period ending October 27. Energy market traders had forecast an increase of 1.6 million barrels.
The Department of Energy (DoE) announced at the beginning of the week that crude oil stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) remained at 351.3 million barrels, the lowest level in the last 40 years, for the fourth week in a row. Total purchases for SPR since the Biden Administration began its buyback program have been less than 4 million barrels.
API reported that gasoline stocks decreased by 357 thousand barrels. Despite this decline, gasoline stocks managed to remain slightly above the five-year average for this period of the year.
Distilled product stocks decreased by 2 million 484 thousand barrels on top of the 2 million 313 thousand barrel decrease in the previous week and remained approximately 12 percent below the 5-year average.
There was a limited increase in the oil stocks of the Cushing region, which is the world’s largest oil storage center and the crossroads of pipelines within the USA, where WTI type oil is priced. Cushing oil stocks increased by 375 thousand barrels and continued to hover around the estimated 21.5 million barrels.
A slight increase is expected in oil stocks to be announced today by the US Department of Energy (DoE) Energy Information Administration (EIA). According to the survey prepared by WSJ, oil stocks, which increased by 1.4 million barrels in the previous week, are estimated to increase by 0.5 million barrels in the week ending October 27.
In WSJ’s survey, the gasoline stock estimate was 0.5 million barrels and the distillate product stock estimate was 1.9 million barrels.
In the survey, it was estimated that the capacity utilization rate announced by DoE would increase from 85.6 percent to 85.9 percent. DoE stock data will be announced at 17.30 GMT.