In the recent petroleum and oil weekly report by the Energy Information Administration, petroleum and crude oil stockpiles didn’t change and remained virtually flat. Crude oil prices moved in a mixed trend as Brent oil declined while WTI oil price edged up. The most interesting news was that gasoline price declined last week and is even below their price level from a year earlier. This is the first time since late 2009 that gasoline price was below its price level from a year back.
Here is a weekly summary for the week ending on April 20th 2012 of the U.S. oil and petroleum market:
Crude oil Stockpiles
U.S. Petroleum and crude oil stockpiles remained flat last week. For the week ending on April 20th petroleum and crude oil stockpiles reached 1,763.61 million barrels. The current oil stockpiles are above the quota from last year: the current crude oil stockpiles are 3.48 million barrels above oil stockpiles levels recorded during the parallel week in 2011.
U.S. Ending Stocks of crude oil on the other hand rose again by 3.9 million barrels and reached 1,068.9 million barrels.
Finally, U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline decreased by 1.04% compared with last week’s stocks; it reached 211.73 million barrels.
The chart below presents 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 -0.147.
Petroleum production and imports (for the week of April 20th)
Oil imports decline while 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 20th reached at 6.061; it is 7.7% above the average production at the same week in 2011;
Crude oil imports decreased last week by 1.4% to 8.945 (for 4 week average) compared with the week of 13/4/2012; they were 2.7% above the average during the same week last year.
The crude oil refinery inputs (4 week average) reached 14.509 (million b/d), a 0.04% increase compared with the week of 13/4/2012, and were 2.6% above the same time last year.
Below is a detailed recap of the information listed above (for the week of April 20th):
Propane Stocks
Propane stocks rose by 1,108 thousand barrels and reached 47,440 thousand barrels.
Crude Oil, Gasoline and Diesel Prices for the Week Ending on April 20th
The average U.S. gasoline retail price declined by 5 cents to $3.87 /g, – $0.01 /g lower than the price during the same week in 2011. This is the first time since October 2009 that the price of gasoline was lower than it’s average price a year earlier.
The national average Diesel price also decreased as well by 4 cent to $4.09/g, which is $0.12/g lower than last year’s average price at same time. This is also a first since November 2009.
A detailed analysis of crude oil prices for the week ending on April 20th is herein.
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