U.S. crude inventories posted a larger-than-expected gain last week after adding over 2 million barrels.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, increased by 2.5 million barrels from the previous week.
According to Oil Price, analysts polled by S&P Global Platts had anticipated a 200,000 barrel gain.
The increase pushed U.S. crude oil inventories up to 523.6 million barrels as of August 19, a “historically high” level for this time of the year.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged over 8.6 million barrels per day last week, a 449,000 barrels per day increase from the previous week.
Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 8.5 million barrels per day, up 13.3 percent compared to the same four-week period last year.
Total commercial petroleum inventories added 6.6 million barrels last week, the EIA said.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged about 20.8 million barrels per day, up 2.3 percent year-over-year.
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.7 million barrels per day last week, a 186,000 barrels per day decline from the previous week.
Refineries operated at 92.5 percent of their operable capacity last week.
Gasoline production fell last week to an average of just over 10 million barrels per day.
Distillate fuel production also fell last week, averaging about 4.8 million barrels per day.
Total motor gasoline inventories remained unchanged last week and were still “well above the upper limit of the average range,” the EIA said.
Finished gasoline inventories grew while blending components inventories sank last week.
Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.1 million barrels last week and are “near the upper limit of the average range for this time of year,” the EIA said.
Propane/propylene inventories posted a 2.4 million barrels gain last week and are now above the upper limit of the average range.
Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged over 9.7 million barrels per day, up 1.8 percent from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, unchanged from the same period last year.
The WTI price was $48.48 per barrel on August 19, up $4.01 from last week’s price and a $8.03 gain compared to a year ago.
