Weekly US oil inventory data from the EIA
- Gasoline -7215K vs -3390K expected
- Distillates 3142K vs -2617K expected
- Refinery utilization -9.4% vs -4.9% expected
- Cushing +1918K
- Production estimate 10.0mbps vs 11.5 mbpd prior
- Implied demand -2.866 mbpd
The story here is that refineries ran slower than anticipated, which is going to continue to put a squeeze higher on gasoline prices.
This is a tough one to forecast and trade because of the ongoing effects of Hurricane Ida.
The API data from late yesterday showed:
- Crude -2882K
- Cushing +1794K
- Gasoline -6414K
- Distillates -3748K
Oil has had a wild ride today as it fell on the China SPR release but has completely recovered. At the bottom, I wrote "Counter-intuitively, I see this as bullish for oil because there's been an overhang of Chinese inventories weighing on the market."
