10/16/2009
In the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) Weekly Petroleum Status report for the week ending Oct. 9, total US gasoline stocks declined by 5.23 million barrels to just over 209 million barrels. Though gasoline stocks are just above the upper limit of the average range of the last five years, the stocks surplus that had been in place since the end of July has now narrowed appreciably. Gasoline stocks are now 18 million barrels above a year ago and 10 million barrels above the five-year average. This has come as gasoline imports fell to the bottom 1.4 percentile of imports over the last five years—declining to just 690,000 barrels per day (bpd) with the range over the last five years from a low of 583,000 bpd to a high of 1.65 million bpd. Also, gasoline production fell significantly in the latest week as refinery utilization of operable capacity was down a sharp 4 percentage points to 81 percent.
At the same time, gasoline demand of late has been relatively strong, with this past week's gasoline disappearance pegged at 9.26 million bpd. This puts gasoline demand 362,000 bpd above the year-ago level and 191,000 bpd above the five-year average.
Meanwhile, the EIA reported that total stocks of crude oil and petroleum products (not including the stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) fell by 5.8 million barrels in the latest week at the same time that the quantity of total petroleum products supplied to the market was up 203,000 bpd last week. The week-over-week increases were noted in residual fuel (up 227,000 bpd) and distillate fuel (up 30,000 bpd). These gains offset the demand declines noted in gasoline, propane/propylene, kerosene-jet fuel, and propane.
This increase in total petroleum product demand may signal more optimism about the US economy as the US recession begins to subside. The tightening stocks and increasing demand are expected to be supportive to a long-term outlook for higher crude oil prices.