PADD3 gulf coast saw a large crude increase, and other EIA weekly inventory thoughts
First, I'd like to apologize for the delay in getting the data out this week. Each EIA series was taking 20+ seconds to get a API call completed, and there are about 160 series. I'm not sure what the cause is but I'll be trying to figure it out over the next 6 days.
We saw the increase in commercial crude inventories, but what was most striking to me was the increase in PADD3, Gulf Coast inventories for raw crude + gasoline.
We continue to see very strong refining utilization. Refineries have been running as strong as I've ever seen for a longer duration. We are approaching what should typically be the fall maintenance window, but record crack spreads continue to incentivize refiners to delay seasonal maintenance.
If refiners go down, less crude is used, and less product is created.
After seeing strong imports last week, they fell off a bit. They're still elevated relative to where we've been over the last 4 weeks. One theory that makes sense, but I'm not positive on, is that flows that would have been going through Bab el-Mandeb are now coming to US. The timing does line up with the Houthis starting their restriction on Saudi exports.
Both imports ticked down and exports ticked up.
Gasoline stocks saw a small build, but diesel stocks came down slightly.
Now for the consumers, gasoline prices ticked up very slightly. We're still below records.
