“US Crude Oil Reserves See Massive Surge Despite Strategic Stock Use: EIA Report”

Commercial crude oil reserves rose massively again last week in the United States, according to figures released on Wednesday by the United States Energy Information Agency (EIA), a rise that surprised the market and notably holds to a new use of strategic stocks.

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.

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 US demand as the Memorial Day long weekend (May 27-29) approaches, which traditionally marks the start of 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.