OIL: EIA Oil Stocks Preview: Crude and Small Product Draws Expected

EIA Oil Inventory Preview: The EIA weekly petroleum status report will be released at 10:30ET (15:30BST) today.

• EIA US crude inventories for the week ending May 9 are expected to show a draw of 1.96mbbl and with a draw of 0.91mbbl for gasoline, draw of 0.15mbbl for distillates and 0.48 percentage point rise in refinery utilisation, a Bloomberg survey shows.
• US crude inventories fell as expected by 2.03mbbl in the week to May 2 with a dip in production set against a rise in imports and small dip in exports from the previous week. Crude production fell to the lowest since January at 13.37mb/d. Cushing stocks fell to reverse the gain the previous week and hold below the previous seasonal five-year range low.
• Refinery utilisation as expected rose 0.4% to 89%. Midwest refineries boosted crude processing to the highest seasonal rates since 2022. US refiners were expected to have just over 1.2mb/d of capacity offline in the week ending May 9 falling to 0.71mb/d in the week ending May 16 as maintenance continues to unwind ahead of the summer driving season, according to IIR data cited by Reuters.
• Gasoline stocks unexpectedly rose by 0.19mbbl last week driven by an increase in production combined with a drop in implied demand.  PADD 1A gasoline stocks fell to the lowest since Nov. 2023 as refineries ramp up after maintenance. Both imports and exports gained on the week. The four-week average implied gasoline demand held up near the top end of the previous five-year range.
• Distillates stocks fell by 1.11mbbl last week with an increase in exports and despite a small rise in production and implied demand. The four-week average implied demand fell back towards the five-year average for the time of year. EU diesel arrivals from the US rose 17% on the month in April to 562k tons, but were only half of April 2024 volumes, Vortexa data showed.
• API data yesterday showed a US crude stock build of 4.29mbbl while Cushing stocks fell 0.85mbbl, according to Bloomberg sources. Gasoline stocks fell 1.37mbbl and distillates drew 3.68mbbl.