US commercial crude oil stocks fall for third consecutive week

Oil

US commercial crude oil inventories declined by 4.5M bbls w-o-w to 514.1M bbls during the week ending August 7, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Stocks have now declined for three weeks in a row, and are at the lowest level since the week ending April 10, however they are still up by 73.6M bbls y-o-y. Refineries operated at 81% of their operable capacity, which is an increase of 1.4% w-o-w and is the highest average rate since the week ending March 27.  Crude oil imports fell by 390K b/d w-o-w and 2.1M b/d y-o-y to 5.6M b/d, whereas exports increased by 320K b/d w-o-w to 3.1M b/d.