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Informist, Friday, Sep 6, 2024

MUMBAI – Crude oil inventories in the US, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, fell by 6.9 mln barrels from the previous week to 418.3 mln bbl in the week ended Aug 30, the US Energy Information Administration said in a report on Thursday. The decline in US crude stocks was much below the Dow Jones analysts' expectation of a fall by 700,000 bbl. US crude oil stocks are about 5% below the five-year average for this time of the year, the report said.

Petrol stocks in the US increased by 800,000 bbl from last week to 219.2 mln bbl, and against a Dow Jones forecast of a draw of 1.4 bln bbl. Petrol stocks are about 2% lower than the five-year average for this time of the year, the report said. Distillate fuel stocks fell by 400,000 bbl from the previous week to 122.7 mln bbl while analysts at Dow Jones had forecast a fall of 100,000 bbl. 

Refinery utilisation remained unchanged from the previous week at 93.3%, the report said. Crude oil output in the US, the largest producer of the commodity, was 13.3 mln barrels per day in the week ended Aug 30, same as last week.

At 1344 IST, the most-active October contract of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange was $69.61 per bbl, up 0.7% from the previous close, because of a larger-than-expected fall in US crude oil inventories.  

Additionally, eight member countries, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have reinforced their commitment to extend their additional voluntary production cuts of 2.2 million barrels per day for two months until the end of November 2024. This could help aid crude oil prices. 

US crude oil imports averaged 5.8 mln bpd in the week ended Aug 30, down 768,000 bpd from the previous week, the report said. Crude oil imports over the last four weeks in the US averaged around 6.3 mln bpd, down 8% from the corresponding period last year.

The biggest fall in crude oil imports by the US was from Canada at 3.52 mln bpd in the week ended Aug 30, down 359,000 from the previous week, the report said. Crude oil imports by the US from Mexico declined by 245,000 bpd to 374,000 bpd and crude oil imports from Brazil fell by 121,000 bpd to 180,000 bpd in the week ended Aug 30.

US crude oil exports increased slightly to 3.75 mln bpd in the week ended Aug 30 from 3.67 mln bpd in the previous week, the report said. Strategic petroleum reserves in the US increased by 1.8 mln bbl to 379.7 mln bbl in the week ended Aug 30.

Inventory of crude oil in Cushing, Oklahoma, a key delivery point for West Texas Intermediate crude, fell by 1.1 mln bbl to 26.4 mln bbl, the report said. Cushing is the designated delivery point for New York Mercantile Exchange crude oil futures contracts. Market participants closely monitor stockpiles in Cushing, as it has a storage capacity of about 90 mln bbl. 

End

US$1 = 83.92 rupees

Reported by Ashutosh Pati

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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