Oil Prices Slipped As Stockpiles Rose – Review for December 28

The prices of crude oil changed direction and declined in recent days. The Energy Information Administration came out with its petroleum and oil weekly update: During the previous week, U.S stockpiles changed direction again and moderately rose: the total U.S oil and petroleum stockpiles increased by 3 million bl; moreover, crude oil stockpiles fell by 0.58 million bl. The oil production and refinery input increased while imports slipped last week.

Here is a weekly report for the week ending on December 21st 2012 of the U.S oil and petroleum market:

Crude Oil Stockpiles

For the week ending on December 21st, U.S. Petroleum and crude oil stockpiles rose by 3 million barrels and reached 1,794.4 million barrels. The current oil stockpiles are also higher than the quota from year: the current crude oil stockpiles are 57.6 million barrels above oil stockpiles for the parallel week in 2011.

U.S. Ending Stocks of crude oil decreased by 0.58 million barrels and reached 1,066.0 million barrels. The U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline increased by 1.72% compared with last week’s stocks; it reached 223.1 million barrels.

The chart below shows the changes of petroleum and oil stockpiles and price of oil in recent years. During recent years the lagged linear correlation between WTI oil price and current oil stockpiles reached -0.193. This mid-weak correlation postulates, assuming all things equal, the prices of oil may decline during next week.

u.s. ending stocks oil  2012 December 28

Petroleum production refinery inputs and imports (for the week of December 21st)

During the previous week, imports slipped while refinery inputs and production increased again.

The four week average of U.S. production (million of barrels a day) for the week of December 21stincreased to 6.879; it is also 17.4% above the average production at the same week in 2011.

The crude oil refinery inputs (4 week average) also rose to 15.43 (million b/d), a 0.3% gain compared with the week of 14/12/2012; inputs were also 4.4% higher than the same week last year.

Crude oil imports decreased to 8.288 (for 4 week average) compared with the week of 14/12/2012; they were 3.4% below the average during the same week last year.

Below is a detailed review of the information listed above (for the week of December 21st):

Production and Imports Oil Refinery Inputs 2012 December 28

Propane Stocks

Propane stocks also declined by 373 thousand barrels and reached 68,850 thousand barrels.

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