Macquarie Strategists Forecasting 7.4MM Barrel USA Crude Inventory Build

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Macquarie Strategists Forecasting 7.4MM Barrel USA Crude Inventory Build

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late Monday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists revealed that they are forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be up by 7.4 million barrels for the week ending April 11. “This compares to our early look which anticipated a 3.4 million barrel build,” the strategists said […]

“This compares to our early look which anticipated a 3.4 million barrel build,” the strategists said in the report.

“Despite the expectation for a significantly larger crude build, from a net petroleum perspective, our view is only modestly looser, as we also anticipate tighter product balances than our initial view indicated,” they added.

“For this week’s crude balance, from refineries, we model crude runs down modestly (-0.2 million barrels per day) following a strong print last week. Among net imports, we also model a modest decrease, with exports (+0.5 million barrels per day) and imports (+0.2 million barrels per day) higher on a nominal basis,” they continued.

The strategists warned 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 rebound (+0.8 million barrels per day) this week. Rounding out the picture, we anticipate another small increase in SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] stocks (+0.3 million barrels) this week,” they went on to note.

“Among products, we look for across the board draws led by gasoline (-4.5 million barrels), with distillate (-1.5 million barrels) and jet stocks (-0.6 million barrels) also lower. We model implied demand for these three products at ~13.8 million barrels per day for the week ending April 11,” the Macquarie strategists said.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late last week by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists outlined that they “anticipate a moderate U.S. crude build” in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) next weekly petroleum status report.

That EIA report is scheduled to be released on April 16 and will include data for the week ending April 11. The latest EIA weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing was released on April 9 and included data for the week ending April 4.

“Looking ahead to next week’s release, we anticipate a moderate U.S. crude build (+3.4 million barrels), with runs up minimally and net imports down significantly (-0.6 million barrels per day), nominal implied supply rebounding (+0.8 million barrels per day), and a larger increase in SPR inventory (+0.7 million barrels) on the week,” the Macquarie strategists stated in last week’s report.

“We note potential for volatility in these figures given the incomplete nature of this week’s data. Among products, our preliminary expectations point to continued draws in gasoline (-2.1 million barrels), distillate (-1.5 million barrels), and jet (-0.4 million barrels),” they added.

Also in the report, the Macquarie strategists highlighted that, last week, the EIA “reported builds in commercial crude (+2.6 million barrels) and at Cushing (+0.7 million barrels), with strong product stats (gasoline -1.6 million barrels, distillate -3.5 million barrels, jet -1.9 million barrels)”.

“From a net petroleum perspective, the release was bullish relative to our expectations, with a much smaller than anticipated crude build and tighter products,” they added.

Looking at the “crude balance” in the report, the Macquarie strategists said, “runs realized slightly above our expectation this week (+0.1 million barrels per day), following a strong print last week”.

“Net imports were also slightly above our expectation (+0.1 million barrels per day), with nominal implied dom. supply (prod.+adj. +trans.) well below our expectation at 13.1 million barrels per day (we modeled ~14.0 million barrels per day),” they added.

The Macquarie strategists also noted in the report that, “among products, implied demand was above” their expectation last week, “with gasoline+distillate+jet at 14.3 million barrels per day (vs. 14.0 million barrels per day est.), with the trailing four week average at 14.1 million barrels per day vs. 14.0 million barrels per day for the same four weeks last year”.

“Total disappearance (impl. demand + exports) for those three products was slightly above our expectation at 16.6 million barrels per day (vs. ~16.5 million barrels per day est.), with the trailing four week average at 16.4 million barrels per day vs. 16.4 million barrels per day for the same four weeks last year,” the Macquarie strategists went on to state in last week’s report.

In its latest weekly petroleum status report, the EIA highlighted that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the SPR, increased by 2.6 million barrels from the week ending March 28 to the week ending April 4.

This EIA report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 442.3 million barrels on April 4, 439.8 million barrels on March 28, and 457.3 million barrels on April 5, 2024. The EIA report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding.

Crude oil in the SPR stood at 396.7 million barrels on April 4, 396.4 million barrels on March 28, and 364.2 million barrels on April 5, 2024, 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 1.607 billion barrels on April 4, the report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks were up 1.5 million barrels week on week and up 15.7 million barrels year on year, the report outlined.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team on April 7, Macquarie strategists revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be up by 9.3 million barrels for the week ending April 4.

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