U.S. crude inventories up 0.5M barrels last week, stockpiles at Sept. 2021 highs

By Barani Krishnan 

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles rose for a fifth straight week last week, with less than a third of expected gains although that still bumped up total inventories to their highest in 16 months.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 0.533M barrels during the week ended Jan. 20, the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. The build was less than the 0.971M forecast by industry analysts and compared with the rise of 8.408M reported by the EIA during the previous week to Jan 20.

It was also the lowest reported by the EIA in the series of crude builds recorded over the past six weeks.

The statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department, however, said at their current standing, crude stockpiles were at the highest since September 2021.

On the gasoline inventory front, the EIA reported a build of 1.763M, almost spot on with the forecast of 1.767M. Gasoline inventories have gone up by almost 10 million barrels to date since 2023 began. In the previous week, gasoline builds stood at 3.483M. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

With distillate stockpiles, there was a decline of -0.507M versus the expected deficit of -1.121M. In the previous week, distillate draws stood at 1.939M. Distillates, which are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains, and ships, and fuel for jets, have been the strongest component of the U.S. petroleum complex in terms of demand. Distillate stockpiles have fallen by more than 4 million barrels since the start of the year.