US commercial crude inventories rose by 3 million barrels in the week ended September 18, lifting stockpiles to 426.4 million barrels and placing them 2 percent above the five-year seasonal average, according to Energy Information Administration data released Wednesday. The build exceeded the 1.786 million-barrel increase reported a day earlier by the American Petroleum Institute and coincided with a bounce in futures that left both benchmarks well off their levels from a week ago.
The price action
Brent futures traded at $101.40 a barrel at 10:05 a.m. in New York, up $2.15 or 2.17 percent on the session but roughly $6 below where they stood at this time last week. West Texas Intermediate gained $1.47, or 1.63 percent, to $92.00, still about $10 below the comparable point seven days earlier. The day’s advance did not recover the ground lost over the prior week.
Products split
Gasoline inventories fell 1.7 million barrels after an 800,000-barrel build the previous week, with production averaging 9.6 million barrels a day. Middle distillate stocks slipped 400,000 barrels as output eased to 5.2 million barrels daily. Distillate inventories now sit 12 percent below the five-year average, a gap that has persisted through the late-summer drawdown.
Demand pulse
Total products supplied, the standard proxy for US oil demand, averaged 20.6 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up 0.5 percent from the same period a year ago. Gasoline demand ran at 8.8 million barrels a day on a four-week basis. Distillate demand averaged 3.6 million barrels a day, down 0.3 percent year over year, reflecting the same softness that has kept inventories below trend.