Crude oil reserves in the United States decreased by 600,000 barrels in the week ending September 11, reaching 423.4 million barrels. This decrease, reported by the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows commercial reserves are 1 percent above the five-year average for this time of year.
Analysis of Reserves and Demand
The EIA report was released following similar statistics from the American Petroleum Institute (API), which indicated that crude oil reserves increased by 7.14 million barrels during this period. However, crude oil prices in global markets are declining. At 10:26 AM New York time, Brent crude was priced at $107.36 per barrel, down $1.39 (1.28 percent) from the previous day, but up about $1.30 compared to the same time last week. Additionally, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude also experienced a decrease of $2.03, reaching $103.80 per barrel, which indicates an increase of about $3 compared to last week.
Read more: Decrease in Crude Oil Prices Following Unexpected Increase in Storage in the U.S.
Changes in Other Petroleum Products
According to the EIA report, motor gasoline reserves increased by 800,000 barrels during this period, while last week this increase was 1.3 million barrels. Daily gasoline production has reached 9.6 million barrels. Regarding intermediate products, reserves increased by 1.6 million barrels while production decreased to an average of 5.2 million barrels per day. Intermediate product reserves are now 13 percent lower than the five-year average.
Overall, the average total products supplied, which serves as a measure of oil demand in the United States, reached 20.5 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, a decrease of 0.6 percent compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand during this time averaged 8.8 million barrels per day, and the supply of intermediate products over the past four weeks decreased to 3.6 million barrels per day, which is 3.3 percent less than the previous year.
Read more: Winter Preparedness of the Oil Industry for Fuel Supply with a Focus on Oil Fields · Saudi Aramco's Retreat from Delivering Crude Oil to European Refiners
