EIA Preview

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

• Crude inventories increased above the bottom of the 5-year range last week for the first time since January largely due to a fall in exports. WTI is still trading well below Brent with strong overseas demand, especially from Europe so exports could potentially increase back to range highs again this week.

• Refinery utilization fell last week due to an unplanned outage at the El Segundo refinery in California and Gulf Coast utilization may fall in this week’s data due to unplanned outages in Port Arthur, Texas.

• Total product exports showed a record level last week with strong demand from Latin America to replace lost volumes from Russia. The high exports resulted in product draws which have helped to stabilise crack spreads this week. Indications from port data are of higher Gulf Coast gasoline imports last week which may help to ease low inventory levels and take pressure off refined product markets.

• US pump prices have been drifting lower in recent weeks as the market prices have fallen, and the updated implied demand figure will help to show if the price drop is supporting the summer driving demand.

• The API data released last night showed: Crude +4.762M, Gasoline +2.927M, Distillate +3.262M, Cushing +0.298M