Crude oil stocks

The weekly estimate of commercial crude oil inventories in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report — and the week-on-week change in those inventories — are among the most closely watched numbers in the oil sector. And for good reason. After all, the numbers help the market assess shifts in the supply/demand balance, a critical consideration in determining crude oil prices and signaling the need for more — or less — imports, exports, and of course production. In 2017, with a mandated drawdown in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, it is now important to track weekly withdrawals from the SPR as well because of the effect they can have on commercial stocks. Today we discuss recent and planned SPR drawdowns and their effect on the supply/demand balance and crude oil prices.

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.