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 leaned bearish, finding large product builds, though we will caution these ‘turn of the calendar year’ reports can often contain distortions. Crude Oil stocks slipped -0.9 million barrels (including an +0.3 mil SPR build), gasoline stocks jumped +7.7 million, and distillate surged +6.4 million. This was not far from the API report, but the analyst consensus was expecting a near flat net inventory situation. Compared to the year ago week, total crude oil stocks are +3% higher, commercial crude stocks are -3.6% lower, gasoline stocks are -2.4% lower, and distillate inventory is also -2.4% lower.<br> <br>The details of the report were less bearish, and also hints that this week’s large builds were seasonally distorted. Gasoline product supplied (a proxy for demand) fell -10% on the week, but compared to the prior year week was nearly +3% better. Distillate product supplied plunged a whopping -20% from the prior week but was +25% greater than the prior year. Refiner utilization up-ticked +0.2% to 92.7% in use; this is driven by year-end tax considerations. Domestic oil production was little changed at levels +3% above prior year levels. Cushing stocks slipped -0.2 mil bbl to 22.5 mil; this compares favorably to 34.7 last year and 25.3 million barrels two years ago.<br> <br>The ethanol data in the weekly EIA leaned bearish, as it often does this time of year. Ethanol production upticked +0.3% to a 1.111 mil bbl/day rate; we were expecting a small pullback. This 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 saw its usual -7% post-Christmas plunge. Exports also took a little breather, falling to 99k bbl/day vs. 166k last week, though much better than 69k last year. Ethanol imports remained zero. Ethanol stocks built the expected +2.4% to 23.639 million barrels (993 million gallons). Regionally, ethanol stocks were sharply higher in the Midwest, but slightly lower on Gulf and West Coasts.</span></div><br><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;\">KJ</span></div>