A week after reporting a massive supply of crude oil in excess of 21 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration had another unpleasant surprise to inventors: the authority reported an inventory build-up of 13.8 million barrels for the week to March 5. and another in spirits, however, offset the negative news.
The day before, the American Petroleum Institute reported an estimated crude oil stock build of a whopping 12.79 million barrels for the week to March 5, while analysts expected a modest increase of 816,000 barrels.
Expectations for the EIA estimate were for a drop of 833,000 barrels in crude oil inventories.
As for gasoline, the EIA reported an inventory decrease of 11.9 million barrels, compared to a decrease of 13.6 million barrels for the previous week. Gasoline production averaged 9 million barrels per day, compared to 8.3 million barrels per day a week earlier.
As for distillate fuels, the authority estimated a stockpile of 5.5 million barrels for the week to March 5. This compared to a decrease of 9.7 million barrels for the week before. Middle distillate production averaged 3.7 million barrels per day last week, up from 2.9 million barrels per day a week earlier.
Refineries processed 12.3 million barrels per day, operating at 69 percent of capacity, last week amid resumption of normal operation after the Texas Freeze that led to outages and shutdowns.
Oil prices, meanwhile, stagnated on their way up as traders started taking profits, and with some bets the downside potential started to outpace the upward momentum.
At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $ 68.01 a barrel, with West Texas Intermediate at $ 64.52 a barrel, both lower than highs reached earlier this week, when Brent briefly moved above $ 70 a barrel. The rally was boosted by OPEC + ‘s decision to leave production cuts for another month and reports that global crude oil supply was tight as demand started to pick up.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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