Investing.com -- U.S. crude oil stockpiles possibly rose by 1.2 million barrels in the just-ended week, for the first such climb in five weeks, according to a report by petroleum industry group API that also suggested higher inventories for fuel products that included gasoline and distillates.
The growth in both crude and fuel supplies coincided with the official end of the summer driving period in the United States last week, marked by the September 4 Labor Day holiday. Prior to that, refiners had drawn nearly 20 million barrels of crude from inventory over a period of four weeks as they maxed out fuel processing for the summer driving period.
The U.S. crude inventory balance possibly dipped by 1.174M barrels during the week ended Sept. 8, according to the API, or American Petroleum Institute.
The petroleum industry group reported a crude draw of 5.521M barrels in the prior week to Sept. 1.
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.
Notwithstanding the broader crude stockpile gain it reported for last week, the API cited a drop of 2.417M barrels last week at the Cushing, Oklahoma hub that takes delivery of U.S. crude. In the prior week, the API reported a Cushing deficit of 1.35M barrels.
On the fuels side, API reported a gasoline build of 4.210M barrels and a distillate gain of 2.592M barrels. In the previous week, it noted a 5.09M barrel draw for gasoline and a 0.31M gain for distillates.
With the API report out, anticipation builds on what the EIA will cite for last week’s oil supply-demand in the United States, and how that will impact crude prices that have risen more than 10% over the past two weeks as Saudi-Russian productions prompted the trade to prioritize supply reduction over real demand.
For last week, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile drop of 2.299 million barrels, versus the 5.96M barrel reduction reported during the week to Aug 11.
On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for a build of 0.436M barrels over the 0.261M-barrel decline in the previous week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.
With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a climb of 0.095million barrels versus the prior week’s gain of 0.296M. Distillates are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets.