U.S. crude inventories fell 7.2 million barrels as refineries ran at 97.2% capacity

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories fell by 7.2 million barrels during the week ending July 24 as refineries increased their processing rate, according to the Energy Information Administration’s latest Weekly Petroleum Status Report.

Commercial crude stocks, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, stood at 404.5 million barrels. EIA said that level was about 6% below the five-year average for this time of year. Crude held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve declined by 3.8 million barrels to 307.7 million.

Refinery inputs averaged 17.3 million barrels per day, an increase of 271,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Refineries operated at 97.2% of operable capacity, while gasoline production averaged 9.9 million barrels per day and distillate production averaged 5.4 million.

Crude oil imports averaged 5.7 million barrels per day, down 124,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the latest four-week period, imports averaged about 5.7 million barrels per day, 7% below the comparable period a year earlier.

Motor gasoline inventories were nearly unchanged at 211.3 million barrels and remained about 7% below their five-year seasonal average. Distillate inventories increased by 1.1 million barrels to 110.6 million but were still about 10% below the five-year average.

Propane and propylene inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels to 102.3 million. EIA said those stocks were 34% above the five-year average for this time of year. Total commercial petroleum inventories declined by 3.7 million barrels during the week.

EIA’s products-supplied measure, which the agency describes as an approximation of petroleum demand, averaged 20.3 million barrels per day over four weeks. That was 2.3% below the same period a year earlier. Gasoline supplied was down 0.3%, while distillate supplied was up 4.7% and jet fuel supplied was up 5.8%.

Energy prices remained sharply above year-earlier levels. West Texas Intermediate crude was $91.74 per barrel on July 24, up $8.31 from the previous week and $25.36 from a year earlier. The national average retail price for regular gasoline reached $4.096 per gallon on July 27, while diesel averaged $5.313 per gallon.

The weekly figures are preliminary estimates based primarily on company submissions for the period ending at 7 a.m. on Friday. EIA may revise weekly data as more complete information becomes available, and independent rounding can cause components not to sum exactly to totals.