EIA Oil Stocks Preview: Small Crude and Products Draws Expected Again

EIA Oil Inventory Preview: The EIA weekly petroleum status report will be released at 10:30 ET (15:30 GMT) today.

• Crude inventories are expected to draw by -0.48mbbls for the week ending 28 April according to a Bloomberg survey. Last week crude stocks drew with another increase in refinery runs and higher exports. US production saw a decline last week but remains within the recent 12.2-12.3mbpd range. SPR stocks also continued to decline as expected as the latest round of congress mandated sales continues. Cushing stocks last week gained for the first time since late Feb but remain at the low end of the five year range to add support to the WTI-Brent spread currently around -3.8$/bbl. AlphaBBL is expecting a build at Cushing of +686kbbls this week.
• Refinery utilisation is expected to continue the trend higher following the seasonal maintenance with a Bloomberg survey suggesting an increase of +0.47% to 91.8%. Utilisation last week was already the highest since 23 Dec before the winter weather disruption and maintenance outages.
• Gasoline stocks are expected to show a draw of -0.94mbbls and distillates a draw of -0.90mbbls according to a Bloomberg survey. An increase in implied demand last week resulted in a gasoline stock draw with consumption expected to gradually increase heading into the summer driving season. GasBuddy data suggests another increase in gasoline demand by 1.7% last week and a 5% increase in diesel demand on the week. US gasoline imports from Europe more than doubled last week according to Bloomberg ship tracking data with strong consumption weighing on storage levels in the New York Harbour region.
• Distillates implied demand was largely unchanged last week with stocks still at the low end of the five year range despite higher refinery output. Weak demand and increasing refinery output continue to weigh on refining margins with the US 321 crack spread hovering around 28.3$/bbl this week.
• The API data released last night showed a draw in crude stocks of -3.9mbbls but a +0.7mbbls build at Cushing. Gasoline inventories showed a build of +0.4mbbls and distillates a draw of -1.0mbbls.