The initial reports suggest a less-bearish inventory build than was expected on crude with gasoline and distillates largely cancelling each other out.
The consensus for tomorrow's EIA data is:
- Crude +1895K
- Gasoline +140K
- Distillates -1000K
This information originates from a survey conducted independently by the American Petroleum Institute (API), focusing on oil storage facilities and companies. The official release is anticipated on Wednesday morning, U.S. time.
There's a notable distinction between the two sources of data.
The formal government figures are released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which gathers its data from the Department of Energy along with other federal agencies. While the API's survey offers insights into the total crude oil storage levels and weekly changes, the EIA's report extends further, providing detailed analyses on refinery operations and other key metrics indicative of the oil market's condition, including storage quantities for different types of crude oil such as light, medium, and heavy. The EIA's findings are considered to be both more accurate and comprehensive in comparison to the API's survey results, though both are market moving.
There are also concerns that the API data leaks earlier in the day.
I've been giving this some thought lately, as US inventories usually build in Q1 but they haven't been building aggressively this year and maybe China hits the gas pedal?
