In the recent petroleum and crude oil weekly update of the Energy Information Administration petroleum, crude oil stockpiles changed direction and declined for the first time in four weeks, last week by 3.9 million barrels. Crude oil prices slipped also during last week and they continue their recent downward trend in recent days. The increase in stockpiles may signal a decline in demand for oil and the ongoing tumble of natural gas prices doesn’t seem to help oil prices to remain high.
Here is a weekly summary for the week ending on April 6th 2012 of the U.S. oil and petroleum market:
Crude oil Stockpiles
U.S. Petroleum and crude oil stockpiles decreased during last week by 3.9 million barrels, or by 0.22%. For the week ending on April 6th petroleum and crude oil stockpiles reached 1,765.854 million barrels. The current oil stockpiles are slightly above the quota from last year: the current crude oil stockpiles are 1.9 million barrels above oil stockpiles levels recorded during the parallel week in 2011. This shift 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 increased by 2.7 million barrels and reached 1,061.14 million barrels.
Finally, U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline sharply decreased by 1.93% compared with last week’s stocks; it reached 217.636 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 -0.15.
Petroleum production and imports (for the week of April 6th)
Oil imports and oil refinery inputs edged down while oil production rose during last week.
The four week average of U.S. production (million of barrels a day) for the week of April 6th reached at 5.934; it is 5.9% above the average production at the same week in 2011;
Crude oil imports decreased last week by 0.5% to 8.947 (for 4 week average) compared with the week of 30/3/2012; they were 0.4% above the average during the same week last year.
The crude oil refinery inputs (4 week average) reached 14.48 (million b/d), a 0.19% decrease compared with the week of 30/3/2012, but were 1.5% above the same time last year.
Below is a detailed recap of the information listed above (for the week of April 6th):
Propane Stocks
Propane stocks rose by 659 thousand barrels and reached 45,442 thousand barrels.
Crude Oil, Gasoline and Diesel Prices for the Week Ending on April 6th
The average U.S.gasoline retail price decreased by 0.2 cents to $3.94 /g, – $0.15 /g higher than the price during the same week in 2011.
The national average Diesel price on the other hand increased by 0.6 cent to $4.15/g, which is $0.07/g higher than last year’s average price at same time.
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