The EIA's figures align closely with those released a day earlier by the American Petroleum Institute (API), which reported a rise of 2.69 million barrels in crude oil inventories. This consistent reporting across both agencies underscores the recent shift in stock levels.
Following a significant sell-off on Tuesday, driven by renewed discussions of a potential peace deal, crude futures saw a slight uptick in early morning trading. Brent futures were trading at $79.62 per barrel at 9:51 a.m. in New York, marking a modest gain of $0.26 (+0.33%) for the day. However, this represents a considerable drop of approximately $10 per barrel compared to last week.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) also experienced a slight dip on the day, trading down by $0.42 per barrel (-0.55%) at $75.35 on Wednesday morning. Similar to Brent, WTI has seen a significant decrease of $9 per barrel since the same time last week, highlighting broader market volatility.
Conversely, inventories for total motor gasoline fell by 1.6 million barrels, reversing a slight increase observed in the preceding week. Average daily gasoline production also decreased, reaching 9.6 million barrels, suggesting a potential recalibration of refinery output.
Middle distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, saw a more substantial decline, decreasing by 3.5 million barrels. Production for middle distillates also fell to an average of 5.2 million barrels daily. These distillate inventories are now a notable 12% below their five-year average, indicating tighter supply.
Total products supplied, often used as a proxy for US oil demand, averaged 20.4 million barrels per day over the last four weeks. This figure is down 0.9% compared to the same period last year, signalling a slight contraction in overall consumption.
Breaking down demand further, gasoline consumption averaged 9.0 million barrels per day over the last four weeks. Meanwhile, the four-week average for distillate supplied stood at 3.6 million barrels, an increase of 1.8% year-over-year. This indicates a divergent trend in demand across different petroleum products.
