By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com — U.S. crude stockpiles had another multi-million barrel build last week, trade group API said Wednesday, as refiners slowed down the output of fuel products amid an unseasonably warm winter.
U.S. crude inventories rose by 3.378M barrels during the week ended Jan. 20, the API, which stands for the American Petroleum Institute, said. In the previous week to Jan. 13 and Jan 6, the API reported back-to-back crude builds of 7.615M and 14.865M barrels.
Specifically for the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude, the API reported a stockpile build of 3.928M barrels, after the previous week’s rise of 3.7M barrels.
The API inventory report also showed a 0.620M-barrel rise in gasoline stocks for last week and a 1.929M-barrel deficit in distillate stockpiles.
The API numbers serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, on Wednesday.
For last week, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile build of 0.971M barrels in addition to the 8.408M rise during the previous week to Jan. 13. If correct, that would mean a total build of more than 30M barrels over the past five weeks, averaging over 6M barrels per week.
On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for an addition of 1.767M barrels after a build of 3.483M in the prior week. Gasoline inventories have gone up by almost 8M barrels to date since 2023 began. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.
With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a drop of 1.121M after the previous week’s decline of 1.939M. Distillates, which are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets, have been the strongest component of the U.S. petroleum complex in terms of demand. Distillate stockpiles have fallen by more than 4M barrels since the start of the year.