U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), increased by 1.2 million barrels from the week ending May 24 to the week ending May 31, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest weekly petroleum status report.
The country’s crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 455.9 million barrels on May 31, 454.7 million barrels on May 24, and 459.2 million barrels on June 2, 2023, the report, which was released on June 5, showed. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 370.2 million barrels on May 31, 369.3 million barrels on May 24, and 353.6 million barrels on June 2, 2023, the report revealed.
Total petroleum stocks in the U.S. – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene-type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.646 billion barrels on May 31, the report highlighted. This figure was up 14.4 million barrels week on week and up 37.5 million barrels year on year, the report showed.
“At 455.9 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about four percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” the EIA noted in the report.
“Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 2.1 million barrels from last week and are about one percent below the five-year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories decreased while blending components inventories increased last week,” it added.
“Distillate fuel inventories increased by 3.2 million barrels last week and are about seven percent below the five-year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels from last week and are 14 percent above the five-year average for this time of year,” the EIA continued.
The EIA revealed in the report that U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 17.1 million barrels per day during the week ending May 31, which it pointed out was 61,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.
“Refineries operated at 95.4 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA stated in the report.
“Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.5 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production increased last week, averaging 5.1 million barrels per day,” it added.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.1 million barrels per day last week, according to the EIA’s report, which revealed that this was an increase of 289,000 barrels per day from the previous week.
“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.8 million barrels per day, 3.5 percent more than the same four-week period last year,” the EIA said.
“Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 699,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 142,000 barrels per day,” it added in the report.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.0 million barrels a day, up by 1.3 percent from the same period last year, the EIA noted in the report.
“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.1 million barrels a day, down by 1.0 percent from the same period last year,” it added.
“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 3.4 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 13 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it continued.
The price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil was $78.96 per barrel on May 30, 2024, $0.48 more than a week ago, and $7.20 more than a year ago, the report stated. At the time of writing, the WTI price is trading under $75 per barrel.
The report also stated that the national average retail price for regular gasoline declined to $3.516 per gallon on June 3, 2024, “$0.061 below last week’s price, and $0.025 less than the year-ago price”. The national average regular gasoline price as of June 6 is $3.487 per gallon, according to the AAA Gas Prices website. The week ago the average was $3.569 per gallon and the year ago the average was $3.545 per gallon, the site showed.