Commercial crude oil inventories in the United States, went down by 7.5 million barrels to 473.7 million barrels in the week ending March 24, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) stated in its report issued on Wednesday. The crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.8 million barrels per day (bpd) during the same week, up by 437,000 barrels compared to the previous seven-day’s average. Refineries operated at 90.3% of their capacity. Gasoline production rose, averaging 10 million bpd. NB: up 2% since last week. Reflecting the fact refineries are slowly coming back on line. As they return as you are seeing inventories of crude decline.
Crude oil imports averaged 5.3 million bpd, dropping by 847,000 bpd compared to the previous week.
Meanwhile, total commercial petroleum inventories went down by 10.7 million barrels.
U.S. crude oil production rose to 12.3 million bpd for week ending March 17.
U.S. production is now 800,000 bpd lower than the peak production seen in March 2020
With the large draw in crude oil inventories came product draws as well. Gasoline inventories fell by 5.891 million barrels, on top of last week’s draw of 1.09 million barrels. Distillate inventories rose 548,000 barrels after decreasing by 1.84 million bpd in the week prior.