(New York) Weekly U.S. crude oil commercial supplies fell by 6 million barrels, more than analysts had expected, but gasoline supplies were little changed, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Agency. Energy Information System (EIA).
During the week ended August 11, these crude inventories amounted to 439.7 million barrels.
Analysts were forecasting a lower decrease of 2.5 million barrels, according to a consensus established by the Bloomberg agency.
Gasoline inventories, on the other hand, fell less than expected by 300,000 barrels when analysts expected a reduction of 1.1 million barrels.
“Overall, these stats are pretty neutral to the market,” commented Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates.
This drawing of 6 million gross barrels on inventories comes after an increase in reserves of almost as much last week.
Strategic oil reserves increased slightly by 600,000 barrels to 348.4 million barrels.
On the side of the evolution – a little disappointing for the market – of fuel reserves, Andy Lipow wanted to be reassuring: “there are still a few weeks before the end of the travel season”, he underlined .
According to him, the market is rather concerned about the formation of storms over the Atlantic Ocean “which could become hurricanes impacting the Gulf region” where the majority of the country’s refineries are located.
After the publication of this decrease in crude inventories, prices, slightly down before, were hovering around equilibrium around 11:30 a.m. (Eastern time).
The barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in October, was stable (0.01%) at 84.89 dollars while that of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in September, yielded 0.05% to $80.98.
Last week, US crude exports rose by 2.2 million barrels per day to 4.6 million bpd. Imports increased slightly from 476,000 bpd to 7.1 million bpd.
Production increased from 100,000 bpd to 12.7 million bpd.
Demand increased to 21.66 million barrels per day from 20.72 mb/d the week before.
On average over four weeks, an indicator closely followed by operators, deliveries of gasoline, kerosene and distilled products are up 3.8% compared to those of last year at the same time at 20,922 million. barrels per day.
The pace of refinery activity increased to 94.7% from 93.8% the week ended August 4.