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USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop Week on Week

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 2.3 million barrels from the week ending January 16 to the week ending January 23. That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on January 28 and included data […]

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 2.3 million barrels from the week ending January 16 to the week ending January 23.

That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on January 28 and included data for the week ending January 23.

According to the report, crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 423.8 million barrels on January 23, 426.0 million barrels on January 16, and 415.1 million barrels on January 24, 2025. The report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding.

Crude oil in the SPR stood at 415.0 million barrels on January 23, 414.5 million barrels on January 16, and 394.8 million barrels on January 24, 2025, the report revealed. 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 1.715 billion barrels on January 23, the report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks were down 6.3 million barrels week on week and up 107.7 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.

“At 423.8 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about three percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report.

“Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 0.2 million barrels from last week and are about five percent above the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories increased, while blending components inventories decreased last week,” it added.

“Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.3 million barrels last week and are about one percent above the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased 4.7 million barrels from last week and are about 41 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” it continued.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.2 million barrels per day during the week ending January 23, according to the EIA report, which highlighted that this was 395,000 barrels per day less than the previous week’s average.

“Refineries operated at 90.9 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA said in the report.

“Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 9.6 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased by 268,000 barrels per day last week, averaging 4.8 million barrels per day,” it added.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.6 million barrels per day last week, the report noted. It pointed out that this was a decrease of 804,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.4 million barrels per day, 0.9 percent less than the same four-week period last year,” the EIA said in its report.

“Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 364,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 253,000 barrels per day,” it added.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.3 million barrels per day, 0.1 percent below the same period last year, the EIA stated in its report.

“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.3 million barrels per day, down by 0.4 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA added.

“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, down by 4.8 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 5.5 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it continued.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team this week, ahead of the release of the EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report, Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor, revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be up by 0.9 million barrels for the week ending January 23.

“This follows a 3.6 million barrel build in the prior week, with the crude balance realizing somewhat looser relative to our expectations, alongside another large product build,” the strategists said in that report.

“While global crude fundamentals have seen significant noise around sanctions, disruptions, and weather in recent months, we believe the extent of total petroleum (crude + refined products) builds in the highly visible U.S. has been somewhat underappreciated,” they added.

“In any event, for the week ending 1/23, from refineries, we look for a modest reduction in crude runs (-0.3 million barrels per day); again, we see some potential for continued outperformance here as turnarounds have been slow to materialize,” they noted.

“Among net imports, we model a moderate reduction, with exports meaningfully higher (+0.5 million barrels per day) and imports effectively unchanged on a nominal basis,” they stated.

The Macquarie strategists warned in the report that “timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in the weekly crude balance, as does timing of turnarounds”.

“From implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers), we look for a modest nominal reduction (-0.2 million barrels per day). Rounding out the picture, we anticipate a smaller increase (+0.5 million barrels) in SPR stocks for the week ending 1/23,” they added.

The Macquarie strategists went on to state in that report that, “among products”, they “again look for another meaningful gasoline build (+3.9 million barrels), with distillate (-0.1 million barrels) and jet stocks (+0.3 million barrels) relatively flat”.

“We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.3 million barrels per day for the week ending January 23,” they said.

To contact the author, email [email protected]

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Crooks are hijacking and reselling AI infrastructure: Report

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US coal generation jumped 31% during Winter Storm Fern: EIA

Listen to the article 3 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The U.S. electric grid leaned heavily on fossil fuels during Winter Storm Fern, with coal generation in particular jumping 31% for the week ended Sunday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Tuesday. Beginning Friday, Fern brought snow, ice and frigid temperatures to a swath of the U.S. from Texas to New England. Retrieved from U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal generation has surged in the second half of January, from a mid-month low of around 70 GWh/day to about 130 GWh/day, according to EIA data. During the week of Fern, gas generation in the Lower 48 also increased 14% from the previous week while generation from solar, wind, and hydropower declined. “Grid operators can call upon the coal fleet to increase electricity generation in extreme weather events and other times when demand surges or output falls from other generation sources, a pattern also evident in severe cold snaps in February 2021 and January 2025,” EIA said. The U.S. Department of Energy on Saturday and Sunday issued emergency orders to keep some generation sources running during Winter Storm Fern, regardless of emissions limits, in New England, Texas and the Mid-Atlantic. Additional 202(c) waivers were issued Monday as cold temperatures remained and the outlook turned arctic. ISO New England and PJM Interconnection have authorizations to run necessary generation through Saturday, and the New York ISO has similar approvals through Monday, according to DOE’s list of waivers published this year. On Monday, the New England grid operator said it anticipates operating conditions “will continue to tighten in the coming days.” The latest 21-day forecast “indicates narrow energy margins from Friday, Jan. 30, through Sunday, Feb. 1, although the region is still expected to meet consumer demand and required

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USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop Week on Week

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 2.3 million barrels from the week ending January 16 to the week ending January 23. That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on January 28 and included data for the week ending January 23. According to the report, crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 423.8 million barrels on January 23, 426.0 million barrels on January 16, and 415.1 million barrels on January 24, 2025. The report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 415.0 million barrels on January 23, 414.5 million barrels on January 16, and 394.8 million barrels on January 24, 2025, the report revealed. 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 1.715 billion barrels on January 23, the report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks were down 6.3 million barrels week on week and up 107.7 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out. “At 423.8 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about three percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report. “Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 0.2 million barrels from last week and are about five percent above the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories increased, while blending components inventories decreased last week,” it added. “Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.3 million barrels last week and are about one percent above the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased 4.7 million

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ORLEN Signs Up for More Renewable Hydrogen from Finland

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Network engineers take on NetDevOps roles to advance stalled automation efforts

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China clears Nvidia H200 sales to tech giants, reshaping AI data center plans

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Nuclear safety rules quietly rewritten to favor AI

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Mplify launches AI-focused Carrier Ethernet certifications

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Gauging the real impact of AI agents

That creates the primary network issue for AI agents, which is dealing with implicit and creeping data. There’s a singular important difference between an AI agent component and an ordinary software component. Software is explicit in its use of data. The programming includes data identification. AI is implicit in its data use; the model was trained on data, and there may well be some API linkage to databases that aren’t obvious to the user of the model. It’s also often true that when an agentic component is used, it’s determined that additional data resources are needed. Are all these resources in the same place? Probably not. The enterprises with the most experience with AI agents say it would be smart to expect some data center network upgrades to link agents to databases, and if the agents are distributed away from the data center, it may be necessary to improve the agent sites’ connection to the corporate VPN. As agents evolve into real-time applications, this requires they also be proximate to the real-time system they support (a factory or warehouse), so the data center, the users, and any real-time process pieces all pull at the source of hosting to optimize latency. Obviously, they can’t all be moved into one place, so the network has to make a broad and efficient set of connections. That efficiency demands QoS guarantees on latency as well as on availability. It’s in the area of availability, with a secondary focus on QoS attributes like latency, that the most agent-experienced enterprises see potential new service opportunities. Right now, these tend to exist within a fairly small circle—a plant, a campus, perhaps a city or town—but over time, key enterprises say that their new-service interest could span a metro area. They point out that the real-time edge applications

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Photonic chip vendor snags Gates investment

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Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

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John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

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2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

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OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

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