Crude oil prices rose even more today after the Energy Information Administration reported a 6.1 million barrels of oil inventory extraction for the week to December 25.
A day earlier, the American Petroleum Institute also contributed to rising prices, estimating a drop in crude oil stocks of 4.785 million barrels in the same week.
Last week, the EIA had estimated a modest drop in stocks of 600,000 barrels, which, however, contributed to rising prices as it coincided with positive vaccine updates that traders linked to an anticipated improvement in demand next year. .
Even the news that vaccination in the United States is much slower than expected, with just over one million people vaccinated since December 23, compared to 20 million planned for December, did not affect the oil rally. This was probably because Congress last week finally agreed on a pandemic stimulus bill, which many expect to boost both consumer spending and oil demand.
The EIA report is now likely to intensify this. The authority also reported a withdrawal of 1.2 million barrels of gasoline for the last full week of December, compared with a decline of 1.1 million barrels a week earlier. Gasoline production averaged 9.2 million bpd last week, up from 8.8 million bpd a week earlier.
In terms of distilled fuels, the EIA reported an increase in stocks of 3.1 million barrels for the week to December 25, with production averaging 4.6 million bpd. This was compared to a decrease in stocks of 2.3 million barrels for the previous week and an average production of 4.6 million bpd.
Refineries processed 14.3 million bpd of crude oil last week, up from 14 million bpd a week earlier, operating at 79.4 percent of their capacity, up from 78 percent the previous week.
The report suggests that, despite recent large stockpiles, there is still a long way to go before oil and fuel demand improves further. There was also worrying news from the OPEC + camp this week: Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia would call for further production growth at the January meeting of the enlarged cartel, as prices were in the optimal range at the moment.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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