Weekly energy inventory data from the US Energy Information Administration

  • Expected was +4000K
  • Prior was +14513K
  • Gasoline +567K vs -1100K expected
  • Gasoline prior -4211K
  • Distillates +4619K vs +1500K exp
  • Distillates prior +3382K
  • Refinery utilization vs -0.35% expected
  • Production +0.035m or +0.4% w/w
  • Production down 6.8% y/y

Yesterday's API numbers

  • Oil +1.4m barrels
  • Distillates +5.3m barrels
  • Gasoline -2.4m barrels

So the numbers were different from consensus and the EIA. There was lots of talk in the past few hours about a bigger distillate build as the heating oil production and storage season ramps up.

WTI crude rose about 0.5% on the headlines.

What could reverberate later is the rise in production. It's negligible but it may be seen as a sign that we're past the lows for production. Drilling rigs have been rising since May and that's translating into production now.

Regionally:

PADD3 stocks (on the gulf coast) rebounded 2.26m after an 8.7m draw last week but PADD1 (east coast) was flat. Stocks in PADD2, 3, 5 fell and that's the surprise here.

On imports, PADD3 rose 37% but that still doesn't cover off the Tropical Storm Hermine decline, at least not yet.