According to data from the government office for energy data, US crude stockpiles increased in the just-ended week. This is because the Biden administration continued withdrawing oil from the country’s reserves to ease the limited market supply that could result in high fuel prices.
However, the Weekly Petroleum Status Report from the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, indicated that gasoline demand decreased last week. That made it less controversial to question if the reserve pull tainted the report biasedly.
According to the EIA, during the week ended April 7, the amount of crude in storage increased by 0.597 million barrels. US crude stockpiles dropped by 3.739 million barrels in the week ending March 24 following a fall of 7.489 million barrels the week before.
Analysts tracked by Investing.com had expected the EIA to report a crude balance decline of 0.583M barrels instead.
The U.S. government’s release of 1.6M barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, added to the crude draw during the same week. It was the second SPR draw for the year after the pull of 3.7M barrels during the prior week to March 31.
Since late 2021, the Biden administration has primarily relied on the SPR to counteract low oil supplies that have driven up American fuel prices. The SPR’s crude balance had dropped to its lowest level since November 1983 as of last week.
The EIA reported a moderate dip in petrol inventories of 0.331 million barrels, lower than the projected drop of 1.6 million barrels and the prior weekly decline of 4.119 million barrels. The most popular fuel product in the US is petrol for automobiles.
Regarding distillate stockpiles, the EIA recorded a 0.606 million barrel draw, below forecasts for a dip of 0.764 million barrels and versus consumption of 3.632 million barrels the previous week. Distillates are refined to create jet fuel, heating oil, and diesel for cars, trucks, buses, trains, and ships.
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