US DoE Crude Oil Inv (W/W) 17-Dec: -4715K (est -2500K; prev -4584K) - Crude draws down for a 4th week and total petroleum inventories down -9.5mb - Neil's Summary

 EIA - Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending Dec 17, 2021 

US DoE Crude Oil Inv (W/W) 17-Dec: -4715K (est -2500K; prev -4584K)  
- Distillate: 396K (est -250K; prev -2852K)  
- Cushing: +1463K (prev 1294K)  
- Gasoline: 5533K (est 650K; prev -719K) 
- Refinery Utilization: -0.2% (est 0.8%; prev 1.0%)

US crude inventories drew down for a fourth straight week with a second straight draw (incl SPR) of over -6.5mb in the week through December 17th, drawing down by -7.3mb (incl a-2.5mb SPR release) despite demand weakening and net imports increasing. While there was a large 5.5mb gasoline build and small distillate build these were more than offset by draws in other products including a large -6.7mb draw in "other oils" (which are blending components) leading to a -9.5mb net draw across the petroleum complex (if SPR is included) which comes after last week's huge -17.8mb draw. Total inventories now at 1,800mb incl SPR. Also SPR stocks are now at the lowest since 2002.

We did see Cushing, where WTI is calculated, build for a sixth week by 396mb after last week's 1.29mb build and around 5mb the previous three weeks. So there is a decent amount of breathing room now from the minimum storage levels (storage has to stay at or above 20mb or there can be issues with the ability to keep lines pressurized, etc.).

Crude - Production dipped by -100kbd to 11.6mbd, which was the highest of the year. Net imports increased by 489kbd as exports fell by a large -766kbd (imports also fell but by only -277kbd so net imports increased). Adjustment (basically an "equation balancer") was -133kbd one of the smallest of the year. Refining usage fell a touch to 89.6% from 89.8% last week. That remains down from 91.3% three months ago. Throughput though increased by 148kbd to 15.818mbd. Crude inventories are -8% below the 5-year average (was -7% last week).

Products - As noted all major petroleum categories drew down led by "other" oils (blending components) .  Gasoline now -4% below 5-yr avg (was -6% last week), distillates -8% (was -9%), and propane -8% below (was -10%).  Continued propane builds with the milder weather good to see, and with the warmer weather expected to continue at least through the end of the month, it makes it less likely we'll have supply issues this winter.  

Demand - Demand fell back as is seasonally normal this week by a pretty substantial -2.7mbd, falling a little below this week in 2019.  Demand fell across all products other than residual fuel oil with distillate (-1.1mbd) and propane (-867kbd) leading the declines.  Reminder, these are at the wholesale (not retail) level.  4-week average of total demand is up 11.0 y/y.  

US implied oil demand (product supplied) fell by 2.737mbpd w/w to 20.454mbpd last week
w/w changes in kbpd
gasoline -486
jet fuel -146
distillate -1074
residual fuel oil +172
propane/propylene -867
other oils -336

Here's total demand which was a little below the same week in 2019.




Here are selected inventories.  Total inventories remain well below last 5 years.



And here's crude inventories.  Down to 2015 levels.



As always, a thank you to @staunovo for the charts and some of the text.  He is a great follow on Twitter for all things commodities.

To see more content, including summaries of most major U.S. economic reports and my morning and nightly updates go to https://seekingalpha.com/user/15085872/instablogs for more recent or https://sethiassociates.blogspot.com for the full history.

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