Draw of 2mbbl US crude stocks expected

New York, 12 June 2012

Platts – U.S. crude oil stocks are expected to show a draw of two million barrels for the week ending June 8, according a Platts survey of analysts conducted Monday. The American Petroleum Institute (API) is scheduled to release its weekly data at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT) Tuesday, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) weekly crude oil statistics will be released at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) Wednesday.

Analysts surveyed were nearly unanimous in their expectations of a 2 million-barrel draw in stocks. The expected draw is well in line with the EIA five-year average for this period.

Platts Survey of Analysts

• Crude oil stocks down 2 million barrels
• Gasoline stocks up 1 million barrels
• Distillates stocks up 1 million barrels
• Refinery utilization, or run rate, down 0.3 percentage points to 88.4%

This would also be the second straight week of declining crude stocks. But at 384.6 million barrels as of June 1 according to EIA data, even a 2 million-barrel draw on stocks would still leave the U.S. adequately supplied with crude oil. U.S. crude oil stocks are 36.414 million barrels, or 10.5%, above the EIA five-year average.

Crude oil stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma -- the delivery point for the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) crude oil futures contract -- have reached an all-time high of 47.775 million barrels.

"I'll bank on the import numbers adjusting lower" in the U.S. Atlantic Coast, Midwest and West Coast, said Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions, adding the Gulf Coast could see a "bump" in imports.

Larry expects crude oil runs to have remained steady over the past week, and believes much of the 2 million-barrel draw will come on oil carried out of Cushing to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries via the Enterprise Partners Seaway Pipeline.

However on average, analysts surveyed expect run rates, or refinery utilization, to decrease by 0.3 percentage points to 88.4% of capacity.

In products, analysts surveyed expect both gasoline and distillate stocks to build by one million barrels.

This is in line with the five-year average of EIA data, which shows both gasoline and distillates stocks building the week ending June 8.

The five-year EIA average also shows that gasoline and distillate stocks are well under historical norms. Based on data reported for the week ending June 1, the EIA shows gasoline stocks are 2.7% below the five-year average.

Distillate stocks, meanwhile, are over 10% less than the five-year average of EIA data, and have been for the last four weeks.

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