US crude stocks drop to three-month lows

Front-month ICE Brent crude futures edged up by $0.13/bbl in the first hour after official weekly US crude stock figures were released today.

PHOTO: Oil refinery complex with big American flag displayed, and fumes coming out from the chimney. Getty Images

Commercial US crude inventories fell by 9.2 million bbls on the week, to 420.68 million bbls on 19 January, due to the winter storms and very low temperatures that have hit refineries, according to the EIA. That was the lowest stock level since October last year.

The weekly stock draw was bigger than the American Petroleum Institute's (API) projection of a 6.7 million-bbl draw a day earlier.

Official EIA data showed that US refinery utilisation dropped by 7.1 percentage points to 86% last week.

Gasoline stocks jumped by 4.92 million bbls over the week to 253 million bbls - the highest since June 2020.

Distillate stocks, which include diesel and gasoil, fell by 1.42 million bbls to 133 million bbls.

By Debarati Bhattacharjee

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