Its very good news this time of year when the DOE releases a “favorable” report like they did moments ago at the normal 10:30am time.
Highlights:
Cons:
- Refineries operated at a low (albeit slightly higher than last week) 84.7% of capacity last week
Pros:
- Crude oil inventories rose by 3.2 million barrels last week. At 308.5 million barrels, we are now into the MIDDLE of the average range for this time of year… we’ve had consecutive oil inventory gains the last couple months. NOTE: we are 11 million barrels below our last year level. We need to fill this gap ASAP.
- Gasoline inventories rose by 2.3 million barrels last week and are above the upper limit of the average range
- Gasoline demand remains flat compared to last year, averaging about 9 million barrels per day
- Distillate demand fell about 3.5% last week compared to last year
- Overall demand of petroleum products fell 2.4% last week, averaging about 20.6 million barrels per day
- Midwest (PADD2) storage is nearing 57.5 million barrels or storage. Anything over 57.5 million barrels would be the highest level since March of 1999!
This is good news, I’m mixed on a hike- but due to the ever increasing Midwest storage, don’t believe a hike to happen. If it does, it would only be to 3.25 or so.
Patrick