Macquarie Strategists See 'Healthy USA Crude Build' in Next EIA Report

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team on Thursday, Macquarie strategists outlined that they “anticipate a healthy U.S. crude build” in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) next weekly petroleum status report.

That report is scheduled to be released on May 7 and will include data for the week ending May 2. The EIA’s most recent weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing was released on April 30 and included data for the week ending April 25.

“Looking ahead to next week’s release, we anticipate a healthy U.S. crude build (+5.2 million barrels), with runs up (+0.2 million barrels per day) and net imports sharply higher (+1.8 million barrels per day), nominal implied supply correcting lower (-0.5 million barrels per day), and a smaller increase in SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] inventory (+0.8 million barrels) on the week,” the Macquarie strategists stated in the report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team yesterday.

“We note potential for volatility in these figures given the incomplete nature of this week’s data, alongside potential end of month noise,” they added.

“Among products, our preliminary expectations point to modest across the board draws (gasoline -1.0 million barrels, distillate -1.0 million barrels, jet -0.3 million barrels),” they went on to state.

The Macquarie strategists highlighted in the report that, this week, the EIA “reported a crude draw (-2.7 million barrels) with a build in Cushing (+0.7 million barrels) and mixed product stats (gasoline -4.0 million barrels, distillate +0.9 million barrels, jet +1.5 million barrels)”.

“The crude balance realized significantly tighter than our expectations amidst very low imports, while products were looser in aggregate,” the strategists said in the report.

“Within the crude balance, runs realized well above our expectation this week (+0.3 million barrels per day), and net imports fell well short (-1.1 million barrels per day),” they added.

“Nominal implied dom. supply (prod.+adj.+trans.) was well above our expectation at 14.5 million barrels per day (we modeled ~14.0 million barrels per day),” they went on to note.

In the report, the Macquarie strategists highlighted that, “among products, implied demand was modestly above” their “expectation this week, with gasoline+distillate+jet at 14.2 million barrels per day (vs. 14.0 million barrel per day est.), with the trailing four week average at 14.5 million barrels per day vs. 13.7 million barrels per day for the same four weeks last year”.

“In contrast, total disappearance (impl. demand + exports) for those three products was slightly below our expectation at 16.1 million barrels per day (vs. 16.2 million barrels per day est.), with the trailing four week average at 16.6 million barrels per day vs. 16.1 million barrels per day for the same four weeks last year,” the strategists added.

The EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 440.4 million barrels on April 25, 443.1 million barrels on April 18, and 460.9 million barrels on April 26, 2024. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 398.5 million barrels on April 25, 397.5 million barrels on April 18, and 366.3 million barrels on April 26, 2024, the report outlined.

Total petroleum stocks - including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils - stood at 1.610 billion barrels on April 25, the report revealed. Total petroleum stocks were up 5.3 million barrels week on week and up 2.8 million barrels year on year, the report showed.

“At 440.4 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about six percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA noted in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late Monday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be up by 4.3 million barrels for the week ending April 25.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com