In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team late Monday, Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor, revealed that they are forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be down by 1.9 million barrels for the week ending August 22.
“This follows a 6.0 million barrel draw in the prior week, with the crude balance again realizing looser than our expectations,” the strategists said in the report.
“We believe persistently strong implied supply has been a key feature of the U.S. crude oil balance across Q3 to date,” they added.
“For this week’s crude balance, from refineries, we model a reduction in crude runs (-0.3 million barrels per day). Among net imports, we model a slight increase, with exports (-0.4 million barrels per day) and imports (-0.3 million barrels per day) lower on a nominal basis,” they continued.
The strategists warned in the report that timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in this week’s crude balance.
“From implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers), we look for an increase (+0.3 million barrels per day) on a nominal basis this week,” the strategists went on to state in the report.
“Rounding out the picture, we anticipate a larger increase (+0.8 million barrels) in SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] stocks this week,” they said.
The strategists also stated in the report that, “among products”, they “look for another build in distillate (+1.0 million barrels) alongside another draw in gasoline (-2.1 million barrels), with jet stocks nearly flat (+0.1 million barrels)”.
“We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.7 million barrels per day for the week ending August 22,” the strategists went on to state in the report.
In its latest weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing, which was released on August 20 and included data for the week ending August 15, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the SPR, decreased by six million barrels from the week ending August 8 to the week ending August 15.
That EIA report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 420.7 million barrels on August 15, 426.7 million barrels on August 8, and 426.0 million barrels on August 16, 2024. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 403.4 million barrels on August 15, 403.2 million barrels on August 8, and 377.2 million barrels on August 16, 2024, the EIA report revealed.
“At 420.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about six percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in that report.
Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.666 billion barrels on August 15, the EIA report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks were down 4.0 million barrels week on week and up 8.1 million barrels year on year, the EIA report showed.
In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone on August 18 by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be down by 8.1 million barrels for the week ending August 15.
“This follows a 3.0 million barrel build in the prior week, with the crude balance realizing modestly looser than our expectations,” the strategists said in that report.
The EIA’s next weekly petroleum status report is scheduled to be released on August 27. It will include data for the week ending August 22.
On its website, the EIA states that it collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment.