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 fairly neutral relative to market expectations. Crude stocks fell -3.6 million barrels; there was an SPR build of +1.4 million, so commercial stocks declined a hefty -5.1 million barrels on the week. Gasoline stocks rose +2.4 million, while distillate was the nasty surprise, rising +3.4 mil. The resulting net build was near analyst consensus but better than the API report yesterday. Compared to the year ago week, total crude oil stocks are +2.3% higher, commercial crude stocks are -4.9% lower, gasoline stocks are -4% lower, and distillate inventory is +5.4% higher.<br> <br>The details of the report were mixed. Gasoline product supplied rebounded +3% on the week, which would leave it more than +3% better than the year ago comparison. Distillate product supplied (a proxy for demand) fell -8% wk/wk and -9% below the prior year. Refiner utilization surged +2.8% to 93.3%; apparently, they see something good coming on demand? Domestic oil production picked up a little steam and is running over +3% higher than prior year. Cushing stocks upticked +0.1 million bbl; the resulting 24.2 mil of inventory would compare to 29.6 last year and 23.9 mil two years prior.<br> <br>The ethanol data in the weekly EIA was interesting, finding a larger than expected decline in production. Ethanol production declined -4.5% off the prior week’s record high; the resulting 1.073 mil bbl/day rate would yield 315 million gallons of ethanol for the week, consuming 109 million bushels of total feedstock. Over a marketing year, such a rate of production would utilize 5.65 billion bushels of corn. Blender demand was again weaker than expected, falling -2%. Exports also slipped a little, pegged at 126k bbl/day vs. 158k last week and 75k last year. Ethanol imports remained zero. Despite the drop in production, ethanol stocks still built by +0.6% to 23.0 million barrels (966 million gallons). Regionally, ethanol stocks were meaningfully higher at the source in the Midwest but steady to slightly lower elsewhere.</span></div><br><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;\">KJ</span></div>