On Wednesday, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said that the US crude and fuel inventories went down last week.
In the week ended October 15, crude stockpiles dropped by 431,000 barrels to 426.5 million barrels, contrasting with analysts’ estimate for a rise of 1.9 million barrels.
In the Cushing delivery hub in Oklahoma, crude stocks dipped by 2.3 million barrels to 31.2 million barrels, the lowest since October 2018.
Likewise, the distillate stockpiles were also at the lowest level since April 2020 by falling by 3.9 million barrels last week.
The downfall in stocks happened even when refinery activity was lower by 2% on account of the traditional maintenance season.
Overall product supplied rebound last week as the four-week average of supply from refineries hitting 20.9 million barrels per day, less than 1% off of 2019 levels.
Analyst Andrew Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates commented, “It makes no economic sense to keep excess inventories at Cushing when you can sell it in the prompt month. I expect that the draws at Cushing are going to continue.”
