Sunday, March 1, 2015

Busy oil bees: U.S. crude oil inventories reach 80-year high

FEBRUARY 26, 2015
 
U.S. commercial crude inventories reached an 80-year high last week even as upstreams curb drilling activity, a new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

The report, published Wednesday, found that inventories shot up by 8.4 million barrels to a total of 434.1 million barrels during the week ending on February 20.

At 434.1 million barrels crude inventories are now at the highest level recorded during this time of the year in at least 80 years, the EIA said.

U.S. crude production also rose to a record high 9.29 million barrels per day, the highest weekly production level on record and the highest level since 1973 in monthly data, Fuel Fix said.

Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels last week.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.3 million barrels per day last week, a 174,000 barrels per day jump from the previous week.

Refineries operated at 87.4 percent of their operable capacity last week and gasoline production increased to an average of about 9.7 million barrels per day.