The Platts pre-report analyst survey of EIA/API estimates suggests a build of 1.8 million barrels in US oil stocks
Platts Survey of Analysts
- Crude oil stocks up 1.8 million barrels
- Gasoline stocks down 1.7 million barrels
- Distillates stocks up 750,000 barrels
- Refinery utilization or run rate +0.5 percentage point to 82.3%
New York, NY - May 27, 2009
Analysts expect weekly oil inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) to show U.S. commercial crude oil stocks increased 1.8 million barrels the week ending May 22, a Platts survey of analysts showed Wednesday.
The API is scheduled to release its data at 4:30 pm EDT (2030 GMT) Wednesday; EIA's report is scheduled to be published at 11:00 am EDT Thursday. The reports are delayed this week due to the Monday U.S. Memorial Day holiday that just passed.
"A combination of low refinery utilization rates and an increase in imports predicated upon previously held oil in floating storage offloading will result in a stock increase," says Linda Rafield, Platts senior oil analyst and editor of the weekly Platts Futures and Derivatives Review.
"With the front-month spread in the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) oil futures contracts languishing below $1 per barrel, keeping oil in floating storage is no longer attractive from an economic perspective, " explains Rafield. "Therefore, it wouldn't be surprising to see an influx of imports over the next several weeks."
Refinery utilization is expected by analysts to climb 0.5 percentage point to 82.3%, a still relatively low level for this time of year.
On a four-week moving average, crude inputs to refineries at 14.405 million barrels per day (b/d) are running 479,000 b/d below year-ago levels.
Analysts project a decline in gasoline stocks of 1.7 million barrels. Output is likely to ease, resulting from several refinery problems that involved fluid catalytic crackers. "Lower output and an uptick in demand ahead of the Memorial Day weekend just passed will be behind another gasoline stock decline," Rafield says.
Analysts anticipate a build in distillate stocks of 750,000 barrels. Output will likely decline with the NYMEX heating oil crack spread generally running at about a $12-per-barrel discount to the RBOB crack. The crack spread is the difference between the price of the raw barrel of crude oil versus the price of the refined products that barrel can produce. At the same time, a continued low level of demand is expected to be sufficient to offset any decline in production.