U.S. crude inventories up 4.14M barrels last week, hit 20-month highs

By Barani Krishnan 

Investing.com -- U.S. crude stockpiles rose for a sixth straight week last week, up manyfold and more than expected, reaching their highest in 20 months.

U.S. crude inventories rose by 4.14M barrels during the week ended Jan. 27, the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report.

The build was above the 0.376M forecast by industry analysts and compared with the rise of 0.533M reported by the EIA during the previous week to Jan 20.

The EIA has reported a total crude build of 34.5 million barrels over the past six weeks.

At current standing, crude stockpiles are at the highest since June 2021, said the EIA, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department.

On the gasoline inventory front, the EIA reported a build of 2.576M, versus the forecasted 1.442M and well above last week's rise of 1.763M.

Gasoline inventories have gone up by almost 13 million barrels since 2023 began. The automotive fuel is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

The EIA also said U.S. gasoline demand over the past four weeks slipped by 1.9% from a year ago, to 8.06M barrels per day.

Distillate stockpiles also rose, for the first time in five weeks. Here, there was a build of 2.32M versus the expected deficit of 1.3M. In the previous week, distillate draws stood at 0.507M.

Until last week, distillates, which are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains, and ships, and fuel for jets, were the strongest component of the U.S. petroleum complex in terms of demand. Prior to the build in the latest week, distillate stockpiles had fallen by around 5 million over four weeks.