Oil Inventories Rise Contrary to Expectations
Foreks - The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported an unexpected increase in oil inventories, contrary to analysts' expectations. According to the API, oil stocks, which had decreased by 573 thousand barrels the previous week, rose by 3.13 million barrels in the week ending November 1. The market expectation was for a decrease of 900 thousand barrels in inventories.
Following this increase, crude oil stocks are approximately 3.0 million barrels below the levels at the beginning of the year. Data released by the Department of Energy (DoE) indicated a 1.4 million barrel increase in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), bringing the total to 387.2 million barrels. Despite being about 39 million barrels above the lowest levels seen in the summer, these reserves are still 248 million barrels lower than when President Biden took office.
API gasoline stocks have decreased for the fifth consecutive week. After a drop of 282 thousand barrels the previous week, stocks fell by another 928 thousand barrels last week. Gasoline inventories are currently 3% below the five-year average for this time of year.
The decline in distilled product stocks continued for the seventh week. After a decrease of 1.46 million barrels the previous week, stocks fell by an additional 852 thousand barrels last week. This brings the seven-week decline to over 12.8 million barrels. Following this decline, distilled product stocks remain approximately 9% below the five-year average.
In the Cushing area, where WTI crude oil is priced and which serves as the largest oil storage hub and pipeline junction in the United States, oil stocks saw an increase for the second consecutive week. After rising by 320 thousand barrels the previous week, Cushing oil stocks increased by another 1.72 million barrels last week.
No changes are expected in oil stock data to be released today by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) via the Energy Information Administration (EIA). According to a WSJ survey, analysts expect the oil stocks, which decreased by 0.5 million barrels the previous week, to remain unchanged for the week ending November 1.
In the WSJ survey, the gasoline stock forecast is a decrease of 0.9 million barrels, while the forecast for distilled product stocks indicates a decrease of 0.3 million barrels. The survey anticipates that the capacity utilization rate released by the DoE will increase from 89.1% to 89.4%.
DoE stock data will be released at 6:30 PM TSI.