Now this is an interesting thing to ponder about crude oil supplies.
In a report released Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said crude inventories fell unexpectedly, down 2.3 million barrels to 313.7 million barrels in the week ended April 11. Analysts surveyed by energy information provider Platts expected an increase of 1.5 million barrels.
That seems all well and good for a bullish case for oil but this tidbit of knowledge has got me thinking.
Separately, the American Petroleum Institute reported U.S. crude inventories rose by 2.5 million barrels to 317.9 million barrels in the week ending April 11. Distillate stocks fell by 939,000 barrels to 111.9 million barrels in the same period, while gasoline stocks dropped by 2.4 million barrels to 216.8 million barrels. The API, an association of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, calculates inventories based on different criteria
That is a 4.8 million barrel discrepancy! How can one report say that inventories fell and the other report said they rose? The API report says that demand fell 1.4% and it was the third year of a decline in demand for oil from the US. Also that 85.2% gasoline utilization has been part of the high gas prices problem. Refineries seem to always have problems and it keeps driving up the gas prices.
Also looking at the EIA numbers you can see that the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) increased by 641,000 barrels. Why this amount doesn't stay the same or drop with $115 a barrel oil I have no idea. You figure they should keep this amount the same when oil prices are high or sell off some barrels to make a little cash. After looking at the numbers I'm still not sure why the API and the EIA numbers are so far off. All I know is demand has fallen so there is not as much oil imported. That should make the case for lower prices and not higher ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment