Weekly US Petroleum and NG Supply Reports (Current)

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3676

Another hundred pages, time for another new thread.

The '07-'08 thread lasted about 13 months, compared to the original thread which took about 2 years to get to 100 pages.

The '07-'08 thread had 1480 posts, and 144,353 views, for a rate of nearly 100 views per post. This is an increase over the original thread, which received about 84 views per reply. By this measurement, this is still one of the most frequently viewed threads on PO.com

What this also shows is that a lot of people view this thread regularly, and in fact most weeks, this thread gets anywhere from 2500 to 3000 views, which is pretty respectable for a few people on the internet.

So thank you, to all of the fellow posters and faithful readers, who are using this thread as an important source of information and analysis on these reports.

{I have stickied this important thread. -Shanny}

[edit - added link to 07-08 thread - markl]

07 - 08 Thread

SD_Scott

It's been a great thread. I've watched it for years!

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3676

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3676

frankthetank

DeepOil · Tar Sands Joined: Nov 13, 2007 Posts: 23 Location: NH, USA

Dan1195 · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2005 Posts: 255

Crude supplies almost flat, gasoline inventories down -1.7 million bbl (despite the drop in demand).

GoghGoner · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 10, 2008 Posts: 411

"Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline demand has averaged nearly 9.3 million barrels per day, down by 0.2 percent from the same period last year"

EIA Weekly

In this report net imports down -587K yoy and we have a drop in demand of ~19K a day. These two figures have to match to have a healthy inventory level going forward, right?

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3676

frankthetank

Pup-

Do you remember the last time we had a drop in gasoline demand (YOY)? So $3.50 gasoline was the trigger? Going to need a hell of a lot more demand destruction if gasoline production doesn't pick up...$5 gasoline!
_________________
"Oil is going up because we use too much oil, and the capacity to replace reserves is dwindling"
-President Bush 11/07/07

AirlinePilot

This demand thing is what everyone points to for comfort. I just don't get it. The words are used by the pundits and the analysts with no numbers or comparisons attached.

Its just another nail in the coffin of denial IMHO. .2% is pretty laughable actually at these costs. We need much larger whole numbers to really matter. I doubt we'll ever have the chance as old Jevon will be showing up shortly saying all is well. With any retracing in gasoline prices demand will go right back where it was or higher due to our inability to do anything measurable to solve the problem.

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3676

It is quite common for there to be a decrease in products supplied vs. the previous year. The argument can further be made that the 61,000 barrel per day decrease amounts to roundoff error in this data anyway.

In fact, since 1992, this has occurred about 33% of the time.

I do have to say that it looks like there has been a mellowing of product supply growth since roughly last July, which is when the big stock market correction happened. Since July 6th last year, there has been a decline in unleaded products supplied vs. the previous year about 55% of the time, so higher than the historical average.

jeffvail · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 15, 2004 Posts: 138

We need to be very careful with proclamations of demand destruction because the statistics lend themselves very nicely for cherry picking.

For example, while demand may be down year-on-year by less than a percent, demand actually increased (both by weekly and 4-week average) between the prior week's report and this week's report.

Or, for a more extreme example:

Based on EIA figures, weekly gasoline demand in the US increased from 9.311 million barrels per day the week ending 5/2 to 9.343 million barrels per day the week ending 5/9, which is an annualized rate of increase of 17.8%!!!

OK, OK... I'm just stretching figures to make a point. I realize that demand increase this time of year is normal, that per capita demand is usually not considered, etc. I just worry when the media rushes to tell us that demand is decreasing, when the decline is so minor, and especially when for 3 of the last 6 weeks, weekly demand has actually risen year on year per EIA's figures. They rarely include that in their reporting...

UncoveringTruths · Intermediate Crude Joined: Nov 04, 2004 Posts: 882

Thought I would throw this in here for pup55 to digest.

memmel · Tar Sands Joined: Oct 31, 2007 Posts: 43

pup55 one of the parts of US oil supplies that I least understand is it seems we are able to import gasoline almost without limit. The European demand for diesel partially explains this but on the flip side as oil gets more expensive you would think that they would optimize their refineries for diesel. Wondering if someone can shed light on US gasoline imports. At some point you would think that competition for crude would lead to a limit on US gasoline imports. Once we don't have enough crude to supply the countries that send the US gasoline then we will have peak gasoline imports.

The US if it was willing to outbid these countries for crude would not then be able to also get increases in gasoline imports from these same countries. I'd say that right now given that oil production has been basically flat and China, India demand is up that the amount of gasoline available for export has probably reached a limit.

Any attempts to increase gasoline imports into the US would lead to shortages elsewhere. Although variable and surprisingly high on occasion we have barely topped 1.6 mbd in May of 2006,2007.
The question then becomes can it go to 2.0 mbd ? as overall oil production declines ?

In my opinion looking at the numbers.
EIA Gasoline Imports

It looks to me that we may have already seen peak gasoline imports. Its to early to tell but oil prices tend to indicate no mas.