In the recent petroleum and oil weekly update by the Energy Information Administration, petroleum and crude oil stockpiles declined for the second consecutive week, last week by 2.2 million barrels. Crude oil prices also declined during last week and they continue their recent downward trend in recent days.
Here is a weekly summary for the week ending on April 13th 2012 of the U.S. oil and petroleum market:
Crude oil Stockpiles
U.S. Petroleum and crude oil stockpiles slipped during last week by 2.2 million barrels, or by 0.13%. For the week ending on April 13th petroleum and crude oil stockpiles reached 1,763.629 million barrels. The current oil stockpiles are above the quota from last year: the current crude oil stockpiles are 6.4 million barrels above oil stockpiles levels recorded during the parallel week in 2011. This new may be among the factors to ease the pressure on oil prices in recent weeks and this pull them down.
U.S. Ending Stocks of crude oil on the other hand rose again by 3.8 million barrels and reached 1,064.9 million barrels.
Finally, U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline decreased by 1.69% compared with last week’s stocks; it reached 213.965 million barrels.
The chart below shows the developments in petroleum and oil stockpiles and WTI crude oil price between 2010 and 2012. During said years the lagged linear correlation between WTI oil price and current oil stockpiles was -0.146.
Petroleum production and imports (for the week of April 13th)
Oil imports, refinery inputs and production rose during last week.
The four week average of U.S. production (million of barrels a day) for the week of April 13th reached at 5.988; it is 6.6% above the average production at the same week in 2011;
Crude oil imports increased last week by 1.4% to 9.071 (for 4 week average) compared with the week of 6/4/2012; they were 4.6% above the average during the same week last year.
The crude oil refinery inputs (4 week average) reached 14.503 (million b/d), a 0.2% increase compared with the week of 6/4/2012, and were 2.1% above the same time last year.
Below is a detailed recap of the information listed above (for the week of April 13th):
Propane stocks rose by 890 thousand barrels and reached 46,332 thousand barrels.
Crude Oil, Gasoline and Diesel Prices for the Week Ending on April 13th
The average U.S. gasoline retail price decreased by 1.7 cents to $3.92 /g, – $0.8 /g higher than the price during the same week in 2011.
The national average Diesel price also decreased by 2.1 cent to $4.13/g, which is $0.02/g higher than last year’s average price at same time.
A detailed analysis of crude oil prices for the week ending on April 13th is herein.
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