By Dan Molinski
U.S. inventories of crude oil fell last week, while gasoline and diesel supplies also saw drawdowns, according to data released Thursday by the Energy Information Administration.
Benchmark U.S. oil prices were lower before the report was released and remained so afterward. The Nymex front-month crude contract for August delivery was recently down 1% at $71.04 a barrel.
Commercial crude-oil stockpiles fell by 1.5 million barrels last week to 452.2 million barrels, and are about 1% below the five-year average, the EIA said. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted crude stockpiles would fall by 1.6 million barrels from the prior week.
The drop in commercial inventories came despite a 1.5-million-barrel transfer of crude oil last week from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the commercial side, as part of the transactions being conducted by the Department of Energy over the past few months.
Oil stored at Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for U.S. stocks, decreased by 400,000 barrels from the previous week to 42.8 million barrels, the EIA said in its weekly report.
U.S. crude-oil production rose by 200,000 barrels a day last week to 12.4 million barrels a day, according to the EIA.
Gasoline stockpiles fell by 2.5 million barrels to 219.5 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations of 900,000-barrel decrease.
Distillate stocks, which are mostly diesel fuel, fell by 1 million barrels to 113.4 million barrels, and are about 16% below the five-year average, the EIA said. Analysts had forecast distillates inventories would rise by 300,000 barrels last week.
The refining capacity utilization rate declined by 1.1 percentage points from the previous week to 91.1%, compared with expectations for no change from the previous week.
U.S. oil inventories for the week ended June 30:
Crude Gasoline Distillates Refinery Use EIA data: -1.5 -2.5 -1.0 -1.1 Forecast: -1.6 -0.9 +0.3 unch
Note: Numbers in millions of barrels, with the exception of refinery use, which is in percentage points.
Write to Dan Molinski at [email protected]
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