2023-06-28 18:00:00
NYC / Stocks in the USA: Commercial crude oil reserves fell sharply last week in the United States, much more than analysts thought, according to figures released on Wednesday by the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), which caused the price of black gold to jump. During the week ended June 23, commercial inventories fell by 9.6 million barrels, when analysts expected a decrease of 1.5 million barrels , according to a consensus established by the Bloomberg agency.
Reserves now stand at 453.7 million barrels.
The US government has also drawn another 1.4 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), which amount to 348.6 million barrels.
“Between the decline in commercial stocks and that of strategic reserves, 11 million barrels have been used, associated with very good demand for gasoline in the past two weeks, which is helping prices to rise,” commented for AFP Andy Lipow, analyst of Lipow Oil Associates.
Crude prices, which were down slightly just before the publication of these EIA figures, then soared, this sharp drop in inventories being favorable to crude prices.
Around 15H40 GMT, the barrel Brent BRENT Brent or North Sea crude is a variation of crude oil serving as a benchmark in Europe, listed on the InterContinentalExchange (ICE), a stock exchange specializing in energy trading. It has become the first international standard for setting oil prices. North Sea, for August delivery, gained 2.28% to $73.91.
Its American equivalent, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI WTI West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also known as Texas Light Sweet, is a variation of crude oil that serves as a standard in pricing crude oil and as a commodity for oil futures contracts with the Nymex (New York Mercantile Exchange). ), the stock exchange specializing in energy.), for same-month delivery, rose 2.50% to $69.39.
⛽️ Gasoline demand has been over 9.3 million barrels per day for the past two weeks, “which is a very good number for the start of the car travel season”, which begins with the July 4 National Day long weekend, noted Andy Lipow.
“The demand for gasoline is also growing because the price at the pump is much cheaper than last year,” he added.
Gasoline reserves rose slightly by 600,000 barrels, less than the million barrels forecast by analysts, which was also bullish for prices.
The overall reduction in crude inventories is also explained by a nice increase in crude exports (+795,000 barrels per day, b/d).
At 5.3 million b/d exported, “we are approaching the record”, underlined Mr. Lipow.
The refinery utilization rate stood at 92.2%, down from the previous week (93.1%).
“We have seen a number of problems in the refineries, linked to high temperatures and thunderstorms, which led to power cuts and the shutdown of certain installations,” said the analyst.
US crude production remained stable at 12.2 million bpd.
Demand over the week was down slightly by 619,000 b/d compared to the previous week, but up year on year.
On average over four weeks, an indicator closely followed by operators, deliveries of gasoline, kerosene and distilled products increased by 1.3% to 20.2 million b/d, compared to 19.9 million in 2022 at the end of same period.
(c) AFP
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