US crude oil stocks decreased by 2.6 MMBbl last week. Gasoline inventories increased by 0.5 MMBbl and distillate inventories decreased by 0.8 MMBbl. Yesterday afternoon, API had reported a crude oil build of 4.7 MMBbl along with gasoline and distillate builds of 3.9 MMBbl and 0.2 MMBbl/d respectively. Analysts had expected a crude oil withdrawal of 1.5 MMBbl/d. The most important number to keep an eye on, total petroleum inventories, posted a withdrawal of 2.0 MMBbl. For a summary of the crude oil and petroleum product stock movements, see table below.

US production was estimated to be up 99 MBbl/d from last week per EIA’s estimate. Imports were down 943 MBbl/d last week to an average of 7.4 MMBbl/d. Refinery inputs averaged 16.5 MMBbl/d (57 MBbl/d more than last week), leading to a utilization rate of 90.5%. The petroleum stocks report is bullish, as the crude oil withdrawal was larger than expected. Gasoline stocks increased by a lower amount than API had forecasted and distillate inventories actually posted a decline, leading to a lower total petroleum inventories number. However, prompt month WTI prices are down $0.33/Bbl, trading at $52.65/Bbl at the time of writing on other news.

Price gains continued Monday following the announcement that non-OPEC producers would contribute to the already agreed upon OPEC cuts. On Saturday, eleven non-OPEC producers committed to 558 MBbl/d of production declines over the first half of the year. Russia is expected to contribute 300 MBbl/d of the cuts by the end of March. It is prudent to keep in mind that Russia is agreeing to cutting from near record high production volumes at a time when some of their fields go into maintenance mode. Outside of Kazakhstan and Oman, who were expe...