Weekly EIA Petroleum & Ethanol Inventory Comment
<div class=\"default-font-wrapper\" style=\"line-height: 1;font-size: 12pt; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;\"><div style=\"line-height: 1;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;\">Weekly EIA Petroleum & Ethanol Inventory Comment<br id=\"isPasted\"> <br>The EIA headline petroleum data was perhaps slightly friendlier relative to market expectations. Crude Oil stocks slipped -0.4 million barrels; there was an SPR build of +0.5 million, so commercial stocks declined -0.9 million barrels on the week. Products were mixed; gasoline stocks added the expected +2.3 million barrels, while distillate stocks declined -3.2 mil. The market was looking for crude draws and distillate builds. Compared to the year ago week, total crude oil stocks are +2.3% higher, commercial crude stocks are -5% lower, gasoline stocks are -2% lower, and distillate inventory is nearly +3% higher.<br> <br>The details of the report also had a positive lean, suggestive of good demand. Gasoline product supplied rose more than +1% wk/wk, which would leave it +2% above last year. Distillate usage rocketed nearly 30% wk/wk and topped last year by +20%. Lots of packages getting delivered? Refiner utilization edged -0.6% lower to 91.8% in use. Domestic oil production is running just over +2% above prior year levels. Cushing stocks upticked +0.1 to 23.0 million barrels; this compares favorably to 32.5 last year and 25.2 mil two years ago.<br> <br>The ethanol data in the weekly EIA held mixed feature for that market. Ethanol production jumped +2.5%; the resulting 1.103 mil bbl/day rate would yield 325 million gallons of ethanol for the week, consuming 112 million bushels of total feedstock. Over a marketing year, such a rate of production would utilize 5.80 billion bushels of corn. Blender demand was firm as expected, rising +2% wk/wk. Exports were also robust, pegged at 163k bbl/day vs. 123k last week. Ethanol imports remained zero. Ethanol stocks were little changed, holding near steady at 22.636 million barrels (951 million gallons). Regionally, ethanol stocks were slightly higher East and West Coasts, but lower at the Midwest.<br><br>KJ</span></div></div>