US crude stocks drop to the lowest level since February

The front-month ICE Brent crude futures remained steady in the first hour after the official weekly oil figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) were released today.

PHOTO: An oil pumpjack with a refinery in the background. Getty Images

Commercial crude oil inventories in the US dropped by 4.87 million bbls to 440 million bbls in the week ending 12 July.

“The positive element was the large crude inventory draw but, implied demand and builds in gasoline and distillate inventories were disappointing,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo told ENGINE. “The market seems to ignore those bearish elements, as Hurricane Beryl might have impacted import, exports, and demand last week,” he added.

Refinery crude runs dropped by 181,000 b/d as the country's refinery utilisation fell by 1.7 percentage points to 93.7% last week. On the Gulf Coast, utilisation fell by 4.3 percentage points to its lowest level since May.

Gasoline stocks rose by 3.33 million bbls on the week to 233 million bbls – the highest in three weeks.

Distillate stocks, which include diesel and gasoil, rose by 3.45 million bbls to 128 million bbls— the highest since January.

By Debarati Bhattacharjee

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