US Weekly Oil Data

US Inventories, Exports, Imports, and Refinery Utilization (11 Charts)

MAIN TAKEAWAY

• Crude oil inventories declined, following historical trends but remained at comfortable levels. Crude oil inventories are higher than that of last year for the same period by 31.1 mb. 

• Gasoline inventories increased significantly and are now at a higher level than that of last year. 

• These numbers, in addition to lower demand growth and rising inventories in Asia (especially in China), are counter to our earlier expectations of a bullish fourth quarter. Slower demand than expected means a switch from the bullish scenario to the recession/low economic growth scenario. This latter scenario was considered in our outlook, but it was not our main scenario. The good news is that we caught the changes in trends early and we changed our views accordingly. 

• Supposedly, the EIA has solved the high adjustment numbers and the large swings, but the data show otherwise, the adjustment numbers and the large swings remain very high. For last week, the adjustment was about -9.8 mb! 

IN DETAIL