U.S. refinery capacity rises 1.9% (6/29/2016)

U.S. operable atmospheric crude distillation capacity as of January 1, 2016 was 1.9% higher than at the beginning of 2015, reaching 18.3 million barrels per calendar day (b/cd) according to EIA's recently released annual Refinery Capacity Report (Figure 1). This is the largest increase in operable capacity since the 2.9% increase as of January 1, 2013 over the start of 2012 that resulted from the restart of East Coast refineries that had closed in 2011. The capacities of secondary units that support heavy crude processing and production of ultra-low sulfur diesel and gasoline, including thermal cracking (coking), catalytic hydrocracking, and hydrotreating/desulfurization, also increased slightly. ... More »

Modest changes to crude oil and petroleum product flows expected from expanded Panama Canal (6/22/2016)

On June 26, the Panama Canal Authority, the body that operates the Panama Canal, will open a third set of locks that will facilitate transit of larger ships, the first such expansion since the canal was completed in 1914. However, because of the economics of shipping, trade patterns, and the types of ships used to transport crude and petroleum products, this latest expansion is expected to have a limited effect on most petroleum markets. ... More »

Higher U.S. gasoline production and inventories are reducing gasoline crack spreads (6/15/2016)

U.S. refiners are shifting their output mix to increase the gasoline production share and reduce the distillate production share, which is increasing gasoline inventories and beginning to reduce the gasoline crack spread-the difference between gasoline futures prices and crude oil. Monthly average gasoline crack spreads are now lower than they were last year, the second consecutive month of year-over-year declines. While distillate crack spreads are also lower than last year, they are only 3 cents per gallon (gal) lower than the five-year average and have increased 9 cents/gal over the past two months. Changing gasoline-to-distillate production ratios are a contributing factor in the difference in crack spreads. ... More »

Storage capacity utilization rises, as growth in stored volumes outpaces expansion of storage capacity (6/8/2016)

The United States added 34 million barrels (6%) of working crude oil storage capacity from September 2015 to March 2016, the largest expansion of commercial crude oil storage capacity since EIA began tracking such data in 2011 (Figure 1). At the same time, reported weekly U.S. commercial crude inventories have increased by more than 72 million barrels (16%) since September, which implies crude oil storage capacity utilization at a record high of 74% for the week ending June 3. ... More »

Recent drilling activity has lowered costs and increased performance (6/2/2016)

The profitability of oil and natural gas development activity depends both on the prices realized by producers and the cost and productivity of newly developed wells. Overall trends in well development costs are generally less transparent than those in price and productivity, which are readily observable in the markets or through analyses of well productivity trends such as EIA's monthly Drilling Productivity Report. ... More »