EIA US Stocks Preview: Small Inventory Builds Expected

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 build by 1.38mbbls for the week ending 11th February according to a Bloomberg survey following builds over the previous few weeks. Crude stocks have built recently due to slightly higher production and lower exports despite ongoing low refinery run rates. Exports are still supported by the WTI-Brent spread which was around -6.4$/bbl last week. Cushing stocks are expected to increase again which would be the seventh consecutive weekly gain. AlphaBBL data is suggesting a Cushing build of 1.14mbbls this week.
• Refinery utilisation is expected to increase 0.33% to 88.0% but is still below levels over 92% seen before the winter disruption in December. Refinery outages are expected to remain high for the coming few weeks due to the heavy US refinery maintenance season.
• Gasoline stocks are expected to show a build of +1.18mbbls and distillates a build of +0.03mbbls. Distillate and gasoline stocks were boosted last week by a surge in imports along with a recovery in production. Imports could fall back this week with ship tracking data suggesting a weekly decline in European gasoline supplies to US. Product stocks could however be boosted by lower exports. Gasoline and diesel exports from the US Gulf Coast in Feb so far have fallen to the lowest in two years due to limited fuel supplies according to Kpler data.
• Distillate and gasoline four-week average implied demand data has shown a very slight recovery in the last couple of weeks but is still at the lower end of the five-year range. The US 321 crack spread is holding just above the low of 29.03$/bbl on 6 Jan.
• The API data released last night showed a big build in crude stocks of +10.51mbbls with a +1.95mbbls build at Cushing. Product inventories also increased with gasoline showing an increase of +0.85mbbls and distillates increased by +1.73bbls.