On January 15, 2025, EIA released its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. The report indicated that crude inventories declined by 2 million barrels from the previous week, compared to analyst consensus of -1.6 million barrels. At current levels, crude inventories are about 6% below the five-year average for this time of the year.
Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 5.9 million barrels from last week, compared to analyst forecast of +2.6 million barrels. Distillate fuel inventories grew by 3.1 million barrels.
Crude oil imports declined by 304,000 bpd, averaging 6.1 million bpd. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 6.5 million bpd.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve increased from 393.8 million barrels to 394.3 million barrels as U.S. continued to buy oil for strategic reserves. Domestic oil production declined from 13.563 million bpd to 13.481 million bpd.
WTI oil settled near the $79.00 level as traders reacted to the EIA report. Falling domestic oil production may provide some support to oil markets, but traders may also focus on rising gasoline inventories. From a big picture point of view, traders continue to react to recent sanctions on the Russian oil industry, which have provided material support to oil markets.
Brent oil trades near the $81.00 level after the release of the EIA report.
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Vladimir is an independent trader and analyst with over 10 years of experience in the financial markets. He is a specialist in stocks, futures, Forex, indices, and commodities areas using long-term positional trading and swing trading.