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Investing.com - U.S. stockpiles of crude oil and fuel products fell across the board last week as exports surged and imports fell amid a cutback as well in refining activity as the busy summer driving period ended, a government report said Wednesday.
The U.S. crude inventory balance fell by 2.136 million barrels during the week ended Sept. 15, according to the Weekly Petroleum Status Report of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Analysts tracked by Investing.com had expected a crude build of 0.25M barrels instead for last week to add to the 3.955M gain in the prior week to Sept. 8.
On the fuels side, the EIA reported a gasoline inventory decline of 0.831M barrels. The forecast consensus had been for a gasoline build of 1.1M barrels that would have added to the prior week’s build of 5.561M. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.
With distillate stockpiles, there was a drop of 2.867M barrels versus the expected gain of 1.05M and the prior week’s rise of 3.931M. Distillates are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets.
“We had runaway exports of crude versus lower imports last week, that’s basically what it came down to,” said John Kilduff, partner at New York energy hedge fund Again Capital and a regular commentator on the trends and statistics in oil. “Also, refiners seem to have started dialing back a little on runs with the end of the peak summer driving season.”
Exports of U.S. crude climbed to a whopping 5.067M barrels per day last week versus the prior week’s 3.09M. Imports averaged 6.5M daily last week, down 1.1M from the previous week. Refineries ran at 91.9% of their operable capacity last week, against a previous rate of more than 93%.
The estimated production of crude oil for last week remained at a 3-year high of 12.9 million barrels, despite the EIA of late indicating declines in monthly output by U.S. oil drillers in its separately-published drilling productivity report.