Surprise Draw In Crude Inventories

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that there was a draw on crude oil this week of 4.28 million barrels, which came as a a surprise compared to analyst predictions of a 25,000 barrels build!
U.S. crude inventories have decreased by about 77 million barrels since the beginning of 2021 and about 20 million barrels since the beginning of 2020.

Last week, the API reported a build in crude oil inventories of 3.754 million barrels after analysts had predicted a draw of 1.867 million barrels. Oil prices are heading down on Tuesday as markets looks to the EU for clarity on further energy sanctions against Russia. However, it is looking highly unlikely at this time, that the EU would reach a unanimous agreement to ban the imports of Russian oil and gas.

In addition, U.S. crude oil production is not increasing. In fact, for six weeks in a row, US oil production has stagnated at around at 11.6 million barrels per day. This is still down by 1.5 million barrels per day from pre-pandemic times.

Gasoline inventories have seen a draw this week of 626,000 barrels for the week ending March 18, which follows last week's  3.794-million-barrel draw, according to the API report.

Distillate stocks had a decrease in inventory of 826,000 barrels for the week, after last week's 888,000 barrel increase and Cushing saw a 646,000-barrel increase this week. Cushing inventories rose to 24 million barrels as of March 11, according to EIA data, which is down from 59.2 million barrels at the start of 2021, and down from 37.3 million barrels at the end of 2021.