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 interesting, finding large product draws. Crude Oil stocks added +1.7 million barrels (SPR up +0.3), gasoline stocks slipped -5.7 million barrels, and distillate inventory dipped -1.6 million. The markets were looking for small to moderate net draws, so the results were better than expected. Compared to the year ago week, total crude oil stocks are +2.8% higher, commercial crude stocks are -2.6% lower, gasoline stocks are +3% higher, and distillate inventory is -0.3% lighter.<br> <br>The report details held mixed feature. Gasoline product supplied was the star, improving over +3% from the prior week, which in turn would be +1.5% better than prior year. Distillate product supplied (a proxy for demand) slipped -3% wk/wk but improved upon the prior year by +15%. Refiner utilization rebounded +0.6% to 86.5% in use. U.S. oil production was slightly higher wk/wk at levels that are nearly +4% greater than prior year. Cushing stocks featured a healthy draw of -1.2 million barrels; current stocks of 24.5 million compare to 31.5 last year and 37.9 two years prior.<br> <br>The ethanol data in the weekly EIA was right in-line with our pre-report estimates. Weekly ethanol production finally showed some give, declining nearly -3%; the resulting 1.062 mil bbl/day rate would yield 312 million gallons of ethanol over the week, consuming 108 million bushels of total feedstock. Sustained over a marketing year, such a rate would utilize 5.6 billion bushels of corn. Blender demand relaxed as expected, dipping -1.3% wk/wk. Exports more than made up the difference, rising to 162k bbl/day versus 123k last week and 124k last year. Imports remained zero. Ethanol stocks were near flat, rising +0.3% to 27.4 million barrels (1.15 billion gallons). Regionally, stocks built to new record highs in the Midwest, while the Gulf Coast declined modestly (export flow).<br><br>KJ</span></div></div>