Strategists Predict Week on Week USA Crude Stock Drop

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late Tuesday, Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor, revealed that they are forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be down by 1.4 million barrels for the week ending May 22.

“This follows a 7.9 million barrel draw in the prior week, with the crude balance again realizing tighter than our expectations,” the strategists said in the report.

“Beyond normal variability in flow items, we once again note persistently high crude exports and SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] releases could inject considerable volatility into weekly stats,” they added.

“From this week’s figures, we remain focused on refined product inputs and emerging signs of demand destruction following three straight weeks of soft implied distillate demand and two weeks of weak gasoline prints,” they continued.

The strategists noted in the report that, “within the crude balance”, for the week ending May 22, “from refineries”, they “look for a stepwise increase in crude runs (+0.3 million barrels per day)”. They warned that “timing of turnarounds remains a key variable in this week’s crude balance”.

“Among net imports”, the strategists said in the report that they “model a modest increase, with exports (-0.3 million barrels per day) lower and imports (+0.1 million barrels per day) higher on a nominal basis”.

“Timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in the weekly crude balance,” according to the strategists.

They went on to state that, “from implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers)”, they “look for a bounce-back (+1.0 million barrels per day) following a weak print last week”.

“Rounding out the picture”, the strategists revealed that they anticipate “another large SPR draw (-9.1 million barrels)” for the week ending May 22.

“While we model SPR releases as immediately benefitting commercial stocks, the precise timing of these flows could also add incremental noise to weekly balances,” they said.

“Among products”, the Macquarie strategists said they “look for a draw in gasoline (-2.5 million barrels), with builds in distillate (+0.3 million barrels) and jet (+1.2 million barrels)”.

“We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.6 million barrels per day for the week ending May 22,” the strategists said.

In its latest weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing, which was released on May 20 and included data for the week ending May 15, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the SPR, decreased by 7.9 million barrels from the week ending May 8 to the week ending May 15.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team on May 19, Macquarie strategists revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would drop by 3.0 million barrels for the week ending May 15.

According to the EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing, crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 445.0 million barrels on May 15, 452.9 million barrels on May 8, and 443.2 million barrels on May 16, 2025. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 374.2 million barrels on May 15, 384.1 million barrels on May 8, and 400.5 million barrels on May 15, 2025, this report revealed.

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 1.601 billion barrels on May 15, according to the EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing. Total petroleum stocks were down 18.9 million barrels week on week and down 22.2 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.

In a market analysis sent to Rigzone on May 21, which commented on the EIA’s previous weekly petroleum status report, Naeem Aslam, Chief Investment Officer at Zaye Capital Markets, highlighted that “total crude inventories fell by around 17.8 million barrels to 819.2 million barrels, the lowest level in 11 months”.

“Refinery utilization stood near 91.6 percent, while crude exports reached around 5.6 million barrels per day, showing physical demand remains active,” he added.

The EIA’s next weekly petroleum status report is scheduled to be released on May 28. It will include data for the week ending May 22.

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