Macquarie Strategists Forecast Near 4MM Barrel USA Crude Inventory Drop

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team late Monday, Macquarie strategists revealed that they are forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be down by 3.8 million barrels for the week ending December 20.

“This compares to our early look for the week which anticipated a 4.6 million barrel draw, and a 0.9 million barrel draw realized for the week ending December 13,” the strategists said in the report.

“All told, for both crude and products (in aggregate) our balances are modestly looser than our initial expectations,” they added.

“For this week’s crude balance, from refineries, we model crude runs effectively flat. Among net imports, we model a modest increase, with exports lower (-0.2 million barrels per day) and imports higher (+0.1 million barrels per day) on a nominal basis,” they continued.

The strategists noted in the report that timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in this week’s crude balance.

“From implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers), we look for a pullback (-0.7 million barrels per day) following a very strong print last week,” the strategists highlighted in the report.

“Rounding out the picture, we anticipate a smaller increase in SPR inventory (+0.25 million barrels) on the week,” they said.

“Among products, we look for another gasoline build (+2.5 million barrels), with distillate stocks also higher (+0.9 million barrels), and jet up slightly (+0.1 million barrels),” they added.

“We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.4 million barrels per day for the week ending December 20,” the strategists went on to state.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team late last week, Macquarie strategists outlined that they “see potential for a solid U.S. crude stock draw” in this week’s U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) weekly petroleum status report.

“Looking ahead to next week’s release, we see potential for a solid U.S. crude stock draw (-4.6 million barrels), with runs dipping slightly (-0.1 million barrels per day), nominal implied supply falling back (-0.7 million barrels per day), net imports slightly higher (+0.1 million barrels per day), and a larger increase in SPR inventory (+0.7 million barrels) on the week,” the Macquarie strategists said in the report sent to Rigzone late Thursday.

The EIA’s next weekly petroleum status report is scheduled to be released later today and will show data for the week ending December 20. The EIA’s most recent weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing was released on December 18 and included data for the week ending December 13.

That weekly petroleum status report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 421.0 million barrels on December 13, 422.0 million barrels on December 6, and 443.7 million barrels on December 15, 2023. The EIA report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding.

Crude oil in the SPR stood at 393.1 million barrels on December 13, 392.5 million barrels on December 6, and 352.5 million barrels on December 15, 2023, the report pointed out.

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 1.626 billion barrels on December 13, the report highlighted. This figure was down 2.7 million barrels week on week and up 12.2 million barrels year on year, the EIA report revealed.

The EIA’s weekly petroleum status report “provides timely information on supply and selected prices of crude oil and principal petroleum products”, the report states, adding that it “provides the industry, press, planners, policymakers, consumers, analysts, and State and local governments with a ready, reliable source of current information”.

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