The EIA's Weekly Petroleum Status Report showed that U.S. commercial crude inventories rose sharply by 7 MMbbl last week, the largest weekly build since late January. This increase was driven primarily by a 5.8 MMbbl build in PADD 3. The rise was supported by strong net imports of 3.25 MMb/d, well above the 2025 year-to-date average of 2.1 MMb/d. Unaccounted-for crude volumes also jumped by 1.77 MMb/d, marking the largest weekly swing since February.
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- Analyst Insight
Huge Swing in Crude Demand Not Enough to Defer Inventory Build
Crude oil refinery input shot up 500 Mb/d, while imports sank by 700 Mb/d, and yet inventories still increased by over 1.6 MMbbl, thanks to nearly 1.3 MMb/d in unaccounted for volumes.
- Blog
The Rise and Fall of Crude Supply - Shale Crude Production, Inventories and Imports
It looks like a combination of shale crude oil production and inventory drawdowns have been backing out crude oil imports over the past two months. Gulf Coast refineries are leading the way to crank up utilization, increase diesel exports and pull crude oil inventories down from the stratosphere. A lot of this activity seems to be bypassing Cushing. Meanwhile the Gulf Coast is at the center of two big events this week – a tropical storm and a huge refinery fire. Today we continue our analysis of crude inventories.
- Blog
One Piece at a Time - U.S. Crude Oil Supply/Demand Balances, Inventories and Pricing
Last week, crude oil prices dropped below $50/bbl, in part due to continued increases in U.S. crude oil inventories, and fell further over the next few days. Then yesterday, prices perked up by $1.14 to $48.86/bbl; again one of the factors was the weekly inventory number from the Energy Information Administration which showed inventories down by a fraction of a percentage point for the week. The market seems to react spontaneously to changes in that crude-stocks statistic. Up is bearish, down is bullish. These days even a very modest decline in inventories is bullish. But serious analysis requires a more detailed, more nuanced understanding of why crude oil inventories behave as they do. Were inventories driven up by higher production or lower refinery runs? By higher imports? By lower exports? The reasons behind the inventory change are more important than the change itself. Today we continue our series on the modeling of U.S. crude oil supply and demand, and the sourcing of input data used in those calculations.
