USA Crude Oil Stocks Rise Almost 1MM Barrels WoW

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), increased by 0.9 million barrels from the week ending September 18 to the week ending September 25.

That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on September 30 and included data for the week ending September 25.

Commercial crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, came in at 427.320 million barrels on September 25, 426.398 million barrels on September 18, and 416.546 million barrels on September 26, 2025, the report revealed. Crude oil stocks rose by 0.2 percent week on week and by 2.6 percent year on year, the report outlined.

Crude oil in the SPR stood at 283.8 million barrels on September 25, 284.6 million barrels on September 18, and 406.7 million barrels on September 26, 2025, the report outlined. The September 25 figure represented a 0.3 percent week on week decrease and a 30.2 percent year on year decrease, the report highlighted.

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 1.528 billion barrels on September 25, the report showed. Total petroleum stocks were down 7.8 million barrels week on week and down 167.0 million barrels year on year, the report revealed.

“Commercial crude oil inventories (excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased 0.9 million barrels to 427.3 million barrels, two percent above the five-year average,” the EIA noted in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

“Gasoline inventories decreased 1.7 million barrels, seven percent below the five-year average. Distillate inventories decreased 2.3 million barrels, 14 percent below the five-year average,” it added.

“Propane/propylene inventories increased 1.8 million barrels, 20 percent above the five-year average. Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 7.0 million barrels for the week,” it continued.

For the week ending September 25, U.S. refineries processed 16.3 million barrels per day, according to the report, which outlined that this was down 554,000 barrels per day from the previous week, “at 92.5 percent capacity utilization”.

“Gasoline output averaged 9.5 million barrels per day, and distillate production decreased to 5.0 million barrels per day,” the EIA revealed.

Crude oil imports decreased 179,000 barrels per day to 5.7 million barrels per day, the report showed. It pointed out, however, that the four-week average of 6.4 million barrels per day is 4.8 percent above the year-ago level. Gasoline imports averaged 500,000 barrels per day and distillate imports averaged 153,000 barrels per day, the report outlined.

Over the past four weeks, total product supplied averaged 20.8 million barrels per day, the report noted, adding that this was up 2.1percent year over year.

“The four-week average for gasoline product supplied increased 0.3 percent year over year to 8.7 million barrels per day, while the four-week average for distillate product supplied increased 5.2 percent to 3.8 million barrels per day,” the report stated.

“The four-week average for jet fuel product supplied increased 6.5 percent year over year,” it added.

In a market analysis sent to Rigzone on Thursday, Naeem Aslam, CIO at Zaye Capital Markets, outlined that oil prices were easing that day “as Gulf crude exports recover and U.S. inventories unexpectedly increased by 922,000 barrels”.

“Saudi export flows through alternative routes have also improved, reducing some of the immediate scarcity premium,” Aslam said in that analysis.

He warned, however, that “this is not yet a normal supply environment”.

“Middle East flows remain vulnerable, tanker risks persist around the Strait of Hormuz, and the latest global supply data still show a market operating with unusually small buffers,” he added.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone on Monday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists, including Macquarie Energy Strategist Walt Chancellor, revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be down by 2.2 million barrels for the week ending September 25.

“This follows a 3.0 million barrel build for the week ending September 18, with last week’s crude balance realizing much looser than our expectations, largely offsetting tightness in the preceding three weeks; we’ll call it a catch up,” the strategists said in the report.

“For this week’s crude balance, we look for another reduction in crude runs (-0.2 million barrels per day). Among net imports, we model a significant reduction, with exports up (+0.7 million barrels per day) and imports down (-0.1 million barrels per day) on a nominal basis,” they added.

The strategists warned in the report that the timing of cargoes remained a source of potential volatility in the weekly crude balance.

“From implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers), we look for a slight reduction (-0.1 million barrels per day) on a nominal basis,” they went on to state.

“Rounding out the picture, we anticipate another small SPR draw (-0.8 million barrels) for the week ending 9/25. While we model SPR releases as immediately benefiting commercial stocks, the precise timing of these flows could also add noise to weekly balances,” they warned.

The Macquarie strategists also highlighted in the report that, “among products”, they looked for “draws again led by gasoline (-1.5 million barrels), with distillate (-0.1 million barrels) and jet stocks (-0.3 million barrels) slightly lower”.

“We model implied demand for these products at ~14.1 million barrels per day for the week ending 9/25,” they added.

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