U.S. retail gasoline prices at four-year high heading into Labor Day weekend (8/29/2018)

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline on August 27, 2018, was $2.83 per gallon (gal), the highest price on the Monday before Labor Day since 2014, when it was $3.45/gal, and 43 cents/gal higher than the same time last year (Figure 1). A higher North Sea Brent crude oil price-nearly $23 per barrel (b) higher than what it was heading into the Labor Day weekend last year and its highest level for this time of year since 2014-is the main driver of the increase in the gasoline price. ... More »

U.S. distillate demand highest since 2007 (8/22/2018)

U.S. demand for distillate fuel oil is at its highest level in more than a decade. During the first five months of 2018, U.S. distillate fuel oil product supplied (the volume delivered out of the primary supply chain, which is a proxy for demand) averaged 4.2 million barrels per day (b/d), an increase of more than 270,000 b/d from the 2017 level and the highest level since 2007 (Figure 1). This strong U.S. demand is supporting distillate prices, crack spreads, and production. At the same time, U.S. distillate exports are down from record-high levels set in 2017. Despite record refinery runs and lower exports, distillate inventories in the United States have declined because consumption has outpaced the rate at which inventories have been replenished. ... More »

East Coast refiners receiving more domestic crude oil by rail, tanker, and barge (8/15/2018)

During May and June 2018, the price difference between the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil and the international benchmark Brent crude oil was the widest since 2015. Unlike in 2015, when receipts of domestic oil into the U.S. East Coast, or Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) 1, were transported mainly by rail, recent movements of domestic crude oil have been mostly evenly split between rail receipts from the Midwest (PADD 2) and tanker and barge receipts from the Gulf Coast (PADD 3).. ... More »

Forecast crude oil prices reflect competing price risks (8/8/2018)

In the August 2018 update of its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts Brent crude oil prices to average $73 per barrel (b) in the second half of 2018 and decline to an average of $71/b in 2019 (Figure 1). Competing upside and downside price risks are expected to play a large role in price formation during the forecast period. Upside price risks stem largely from the possibility of supply outages when both petroleum inventories and spare crude oil production capacity for members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are lower than average. Downside price risks stem largely from potentially reduced demand because economic growth and resulting crude oil demand could be lower than forecast. ... More »

U.S. refineries running at near-record levels (8/1/2018)

For the week ending July 6, 2018, the four-week average of U.S. gross refinery inputs surpassed 18 million barrels per day (b/d) for the first time since the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) began publishing that data series in 1990 (Figure 1). U.S. refineries are running at record levels in response to robust domestic and international demand for motor gasoline and distillate fuel oil. ... More »