US commercial crude stocks surge in week to December 4

Oil

US commercial crude inventories swelled by more than 15M bbls w-o-w in the week ending Dec. 4 to a near four-month high of 503.2M bbls, representing the largest weekly increase since mid-April, US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed. The jump in crude stocks, which stand at about 55M bbls above year ago levels, was a result of i) plummeting US crude exports, which declined by a massive 1.6M b/d w-o-w to 1.83M b/d, the lowest weekly level since October 2018 and ii) increased oil imports, which hit a five-month high of 6.48M b/d (+1.08M b/d w-o-w). These factors outweighed the 424K b/d w-o-w rise in refinery throughput to 14.4M b/d, the highest since mid-August.