The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories decreased by 4.5 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory to 362.5 million barrels, and they remain above upper limit of the five-year range for this time of the year.
Total gasoline inventories increased by 600,000 barrels last week and remain in the middle of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the EIA’s measure of consumption) averaged more than nine million barrels a day for the past four weeks, down by 2%, compared with the same period a year ago.
Distillate inventories dropped by one million barrels last week, and remain below the lower limit of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged about four million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 5.5% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged 4.9 million barrels a day last week, up by 200,000 barrels a day, compared with the prior week’s production.
Before the EIA report, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was trading up at around $95.55 U.S. a barrel, about 1.1% above Tuesday’s closing price of $94.48 U.S. The WTI price rose further to around $95.75 U.S. a barrel shortly after the report was released.
