USA: oil stocks increase for the tenth week in a row

New York (awp / afp) – Crude oil inventories in the United States rose for the tenth consecutive week, driven by record US production, according to figures released Wednesday by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA).

During the week ended Nov. 23, commercial crude reserves rose 3.6 million barrels to 450.5 million, while analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected a more modest rise in a million barrels.

Crude stocks have advanced more than 56 million barrels since mid-September.

"If we continue to get these numbers, we can expect a further decline in prices," said Kyle Cooper of IAF Advisors, describing the report as a whole "negative for markets."

The price of a barrel of American oil, which was in small decline before the publication of these figures, accelerated its decline. He lost 73 cents, at 50.83 dollars, around 16:30 GMT on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex).

The specialist specifies however that with the fall of nearly 10 million barrels of the American strategic reserves in recent weeks especially for budgetary reasons, the jump of stocks recorded since September is a little less marked than it has been air.

The further increase in crude oil reserves was partly fueled by the continued record of production, with the United States extracting an average of 11.7 million barrels of black gold per day over the period, such as former.

Refineries accelerated their pace after their maintenance work in early autumn: they operate on average 95.6% of their capacity, against 92.7% the previous week and 90.1% two weeks ago .

Increase in imports

Also scrutinized as a benchmark for oil quotation in New York, WTI crude oil inventories at Cushing Terminal (Oklahoma, South) also increased by 1.2 million barrels to 36, 5 million barrels.

The reserves of gasoline, they fell by 800,000 barrels, where analysts expected a rise of one million barrels.

They are up 4.9% from their level of a year ago and are 5% above the average of the past five years.

Stocks of other distillate products (heating oil and diesel) increased by 2.6 million barrels, while a drop of more than 750,000 barrels was expected.

They are down 4.7% from their level of a year ago and 6% from the average of the last five years.

Crude reserves are down 0.7% from the same period last year but are 7% above the average of the last five years at this time.

On the demand side, the United States consumed an average of 21.1 million barrels per day of refined products in the last four weeks, up 5.6% over the same period a year. latest.

Demand for gasoline over the past four weeks declined 0.9%, while demand for other distillates rose 2.0%.

Exports increased from 1.97 million barrels per day (mbd) to 2.44 mbd, as did imports, from 7.55 mbj to 8.16 mbd.

afp / rp