U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 1.4 million barrels from the previous week while the amount of crude oil in storage at the Cushing hub in Oklahoma grew by 300,000 barrels.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that as of September 30, the most recent week for available figures, the Cushing hub held 26 million barrels of crude oil. It compared to 25.7 million held as of September 23, 2022.
The slow growth in storage at Cushing is not a surprise to some analysts who predicted in August that the shrinking discount of U.S. crude to Brent and rising Canadian oil imports would send more barrels to the top U.S. oil storage hub.
Two years ago, Cushing held 56.5 million barrels of crude. The September 30, 2022 amount of 26 million is 54% less according to the EIA.
At 429.2 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 4.7 million barrels from last week and are about 9% below the five year average for this time of year.
Both Finished gasoline and blending components inventories decreased last week. Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 3.4 million barrels last week and are about 21% below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 1.6 million barrels from last week and are at the five year average for this time of year.
Source: EIA