The American Petroleum Institute reports U.S. crude oil production in May dropped to its lowest level in more than 30 years.
Production was 7.055 million b/d, down 3.9% from 7.339 million b/d in May a year ago, and the lowest monthly average since 1961.
Two thirds of the year to year drop was due to an 11% decline in Alaskan production related in part to scheduled maintenance. Lower 48 production dropped by about 90,000 b/d from a year ago.
This May's U.S. production represents a drop of 23% or more than 2 million b/d from the recent peak of a little less than 9.2 million b/d in February 1986.
Demand for petroleum products remained soft, with products supplied from primary storage averaging 16.317 million b/d, up only 1.4% from the 16.098 million b/d delivered in May 1991.
API said imports of crude and products were 7.900 million b/d, down 7% from the 8.496 million b/d of a year ago. Despite that, for the first 5 months of 1992, imports rose almost 500,000 b/d or about 6%.
Refinery activity continued to rebound in May from the first quarter's 5 year low. Inputs to stills were up fractionally from the levels of a year ago but were at the highest level for May since the late 1970s.
Among major products, jet fuel production was up 3.8% from year ago levels, while distillate fuel production was up 0.4%. In the case of jet fuel, production was at an all time high for the month, while distillate production was the highest for any May since 1979.
Gasoline production fell nearly 1% from last year.
Utilization of refinery capacity was 92.5%, unusually high for May and nearly 2 percentage points higher than a year ago.
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