U.S. crude inventories up by 10M barrels second week in row: API

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles extended their builds by around 10 million barrels for a second week in a row, trade group API said Tuesday, as the petroleum complex as a whole appeared headed for a supply glut amid an unseasonably warm winter.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 9.895M barrels during the week ended Feb. 17, the API, which stands for the American Petroleum Institute, said. In the previous week to Feb. 10, the API reported a crude build of 10.507M barrels.

Specifically for the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude, the API reported a stockpile build of 0.481M barrels, after the previous week’s rise of 1.945M barrels.

The API inventory report also showed a 0.894M-barrel rise in gasoline stocks for last week and a 1.374M-barrel gain in distillate stockpiles.

The API numbers serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, on Wednesday.

For the week ended Feb. 17, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile build of 2.083M barrels in addition to the 16.283M jump during the previous week to Feb. 10. Crude stocks have risen more than 53M barrels over the past eight weeks.

On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for an addition of 0.108M barrels after a build of 2.317M in the prior week. Gasoline inventories have gone up by nearly 20M barrels since 2023 began. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a drop of 1.126M after the previous week’s deficit of 1.285M. Distillates, which are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets, had been the strongest demand component of the U.S. petroleum complex until last month.