US crude stockpiles declined last week for the first time since Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey wreaked havoc on US Gulf Coast midstream and downstream systems.
Commercial crude inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, fell 1.8 million bbl during the week ended Sept. 22 compared with the previous week’s total, the US Energy Information Administration said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report.
At 471 million bbl, US crude inventories are in the upper half of the average range for this time of year. Stocks had risen by 15.1 million bbl during the previous 3 weeks (OGJ Online, Sept. 20, 2017).
In separate data, the American Petroleum Institute reported that US crude stockpiles dropped 761,000 bbl, while gasoline inventories gained 1.5 million bbl and distillate fell 4.5 million bbl.
EIA said total motor gasoline inventories gained 1.1 million bbl last week and are in the upper half of the average range for this time of year. Gasoline stocks had dropped by 13.7 million bbl during the previous 3 weeks. Finished gasoline inventories decreased while blending components inventories increased.
Distillate fuel inventories fell 800,000 bbl and are in the lower half of the average range for this time of year, EIA reported.
US crude refinery inputs averaged 16.2 million b/d, up 1 million b/d from the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 88.6% of their operable capacity last week.
Both gasoline production and distillate fuel production increased to 9.9 million b/d and 4.6 million b/d, respectively.
US crude imports averaged 7.4 million b/d, up 59,000 b/d from the previous week. Over the last 4 weeks, crude imports averaged 7.1 million b/d, down 9.3% from the same 4-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports, including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components, averaged 1 million b/d. Distillate fuel imports averaged 84,000 b/d last week.
US crude production gained 37,000 b/d last week to 9.547 million b/d.