according to foreign news on september 20, a report released by the u.s. energy information administration (eia) on wednesday showed that u.s. crude oil inventories fell last week, affected by strong exports. gasoline and diesel inventories fell as refineries began maintenance.
u.s. crude oil inventories fell by 2.1 million barrels in the week ended september 15 to 418.46 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations of a decrease of approximately 2.2 million barrels.
eia said that crude oil inventories in cushing, oklahoma, where nymex crude oil futures are delivered, fell by 2.06 million barrels to 22.9 million barrels, the lowest level since july 2022.
eia data showed that crude oil exports increased by 2,000 barrels per day, lowering inventories last week.
u.s. net crude oil imports decreased by 3.04 million barrels per day that week to 1.45 million barrels per day.
u.s. refinery crude processing capacity fell by 496,000 barrels per day last week to 16.3 million barrels per day. refinery capacity utilization fell 1.8 percentage points from the previous week to 91.9%.
reduced crude oil processing led to lower gasoline and distillate inventories.
the eia report showed that u.s. gasoline inventories fell by 831,000 barrels to 219.48 million barrels in the week ended september 15. analysts had previously expected an increase of about 300,000 barrels.
inventories of distillates, including heating oil and diesel, fell by 2.9 million barrels to 119.67 million barrels during the week, while analysts expected an increase of about 200,000 barrels.
