By Crude oil inventories in the US rose more than expected in the week ended November 8 as product stocks fell sharply, the Energy Information Administration said late on Thursday.
Oil inventories climbed 2.1 million barrels to 429.7 million barrels in the US, and were about 4% below the five year average for this time of the year.
Analysts had expected crude stocks in the US to rise by just 400,000 barrels last week.
Meanwhile, refineries operated at 91.4% last week as compared with 89.1% in the preceding week, the EIA said in its weekly report.
The sharp rise in stockpiles in the US also weighed on global oil prices.
At the time of writing, the West Texas Intermediate crude oil was 1.5% lower at $67.69 per barrel, while Brent was at $71.53 per barrel, down 1.4% from the previous close.
Product stocks slump
Gasoline stocks in the US slumped 4.4 million barrels to 206.9 million barrels last week, according to the data.
Additionally, distillate stockpiles also fell by 1.4 million barrels to 114.4 million barrels.
Gasoline and distillate inventories in the country were 4% and 5% below the five-year average, EIA said.
Stocks of residual fuel oil increased by just 200,000 barrels to 23.7 million barrels. Inventories of propane and propylene declined by 2.1 million barrels to 98.4 million barrels last week.
Production
Crude oil production in the US was at 13.4 million barrels per day in the week ended November 8, down 100,000 barrels per day from the preceding week.
Oil production was at record levels as the country continued to pump more crude in recent months.
EIA in its Short Term Energy Outlook earlier this week raised the forecast for crude oil production in the US.
EIA expects US’ oil production to average 13.23 million barrels per day in 2024. This is slightly higher than 13.22 million barrels per day estimated in October’s report.
US’ oil production is expected to be at record levels as 2024’s estimate is about 300,000 barrels per day higher than 2023’s record levels.
For 2025, oil production was pegged even higher at 13.53 million barrels per day, according to the EIA’s report.
Imports and exports
Crude oil imports by the US rose 269,000 barrels per day to 6.51 million barrels per day last week.
The four-week average for imports stood at 6.29 million barrels a day as of last week, down 0.2% from the corresponding period a year ago.
Exports by the US rose by 590,000 barrels per day last week to clock 3.44 million barrels a day, the data showed.
The four-week average for exports as of last week was a whopping 23.4% lower on a year-on-year basis at 3.67 million barrels per day.
Imports from Ecuador rose the most by 210,000 barrels per day to 247,000 barrels per day last week.
Meanwhile, imports of crude oil from Saudi Arabia fell the most by 303,000 barrels per day to 140,000 barrels per day last week.
Stocks of crude oil at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI crude fell by 700,000 barrels to 25.2 million barrels last week.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the US rose 600,000 barrels to 387.8 million barrels as of November 8.
The US government had recently expressed interest to buy up to 3 million barrels of crude oil from the market to fill up its strategic reserves.
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