“Massive Increase in US Crude Oil Inventories Despite Refinery Acceleration: Analysis”

By Le Figaro with AFP

Published on 05/17/2023 at 17:38

The commercial reserves of crude oil rose again massively last week in the United States, according to figures published on Wednesday by the American Energy Information Agency (EIA): an increase which surprised the market and is due in particular to a new use of stocks strategic. During the week ended May 12, US commercial inventories rose by 5 million barrels, while analysts saw them contract by 2 million barrels, according to a consensus established by the Bloomberg agency. This increase is explained, in part, by a further drain on American strategic reserves, which fell by 2.4 million barrels over the period.

It is also justified by a significant statistical adjustment, which led the EIA to add 1.6 million barrels per day to the quantities arriving on the American market, ie more than 11 million barrels over one week. These adjustments are frequent and allow the EIA to correct approximations on previous data, but tend to blur the data for the week in question.

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A worrying slowdown

The swelling of commercial stocks comes despite the acceleration of American refineries, whose utilization rate rose to 92%, against 91% the previous week, the highest since the end of December. In addition, crude exports jumped by half (+50%), more than imports (+23%). As for demand, shipments of refined products in the United States fell back (-3%) over one week, pulled down by gasoline (-4%) and kerosene (-28%). This slowdown is likely to further worry the market about U.S. demand as the Memorial Day long weekend approaches, May 27-29, which traditionally kicks off the travel season. in the USA.

As for production, it fell slightly, to 12.2 million barrels per day, against 12.3 the previous week, levels around which volumes have been evolving since the beginning of the year. The publication did little to react to the prices of black gold. Around 2:55 p.m. GMT, the price of a barrel of American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in June gained 0.62%, to 71.30 dollars.