A week after a massive crude oil supply of more than 21 million barrels was reported, the Energy Information Administration had another unpleasant surprise for stockholders: the government reported a stockpile of 13.8 million barrels for the week to March 5. and another one in distillate, however, offset the negative news.
A day earlier, the U.S. Petroleum Institute reported an estimated stockpile of crude oil of as much as 12.79 million barrels for the week to March 5, against analysts’ expectations that it would take a modest increase to 816,000 barrels.
The expectation for the EIA estimate was that there would be a decrease in the stock of crude oil by 833,000 barrels.
In terms of petrol, the EIA reported an inventory decrease of 11.9 million barrels, compared to a decrease of 13.6 million barrels estimated for the previous week. Gasoline production averaged 9 million barrels per day, compared to 8.3 million bpd a week earlier.
In distillate fuels, the government estimated a stockpile of 5.5 million barrels for the week to March 5, compared with a drop of 9.7 million barrels for the previous week. The average distillate production averaged 3.7 million bpd last week, compared to 2.9 million bpd a week before.
Refineries processed 12.3 million bpd last week, operating at 69 percent of capacity, amid the resumption of normal operation after the Texas Freeze that led to outages and downtime.
Oil prices, meanwhile, rose higher as traders began to make profits, and some bet that the downward potential was beginning to exceed 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 the high hit earlier this week, when Brent briefly traded at $ 70 a barrel. barrel. The rally was spurred by OPEC +’s decision to suspend production cuts for another month, reporting that supply of crude has intensified worldwide as demand begins to rise.
By Irina Slave for Oilprice.com
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