U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 2.3 million barrels from the week ending April 24 to the week ending May 1.
That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on May 6 and included data for the week ending May 1.
This EIA report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 457.2 million barrels on May 1, 459.5 million barrels on April 24, and 438.4 million barrels on May 2, 2025. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 392.7 million barrels on May 1, 397.9 million barrels on April 24, and 399.1 million barrels on May 2, 2025, the report revealed.
Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.634 billion barrels on May 1, according to the EIA’s latest weekly petroleum status report. Total petroleum stocks were down 11.1 million barrels week on week and up 21.6 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.
“At 457.2 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about one percent above the five-year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report.
“Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.5 million barrels from last week and are four percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” it added.
“Finished gasoline inventories increased, while blending component inventories decreased last week. Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels last week and are about 11 percent below the five-year average for this time of year,” it continued.
“Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels from last week and are 56 percent above the five-year average for this time of year,” it went on to state.
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.0 million barrels per day during the week ending May 1, according to the EIA’s report, which pointed out that this was 42,000 barrels per day less than the previous week’s average.
“Refineries operated at 90.1 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA said in the report.
“Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.6 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased, averaging 4.9 million barrels per day,” it added.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.5 million barrels per day last week, the report noted. This marked a decrease of 273,000 barrels per day from the previous week, the EIA report revealed.
“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 5.6 million barrels per day, 2.4 percent less than the same four-week period last year,” the EIA said.
“Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 755,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 123,000 barrels per day,” it added.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.3 million barrels per day, according to the report, which highlighted that this was up by 2.6 percent from the same period last year.
“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.0 million barrels per day, up by 1.0 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA said in its report.
“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.8 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, up by 3.5 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was down 6.2 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it added.
The EIA also highlighted in its report that the national average retail price for regular gasoline increased to $4.452 per gallon on May 4, “$0.329 more than last week’s price, and $1.305 more than the year-ago price”.
“The national average retail diesel fuel price increased $0.289 to $5.640 per gallon, $2.143 more than the price one year ago,” the EIA pointed out in the report.
According to the AAA Fuel Prices website, the average price of regular gasoline and diesel in the U.S. stood at $4.558 per gallon and $5.674 per gallon, respectively, on May 7.
In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone this week by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor, outlined that they expected another U.S. crude inventory draw “amidst elevated exports”.
“We are forecasting U.S. crude inventories down 5.0 million barrels for the week ending May 1,” the strategists noted in the report.
“This follows a 6.2 million barrel draw in the prior week, with the crude balance realizing significantly tighter than our expectations,” they added.
In its previous weekly petroleum status report, which was released on April 29 and included data for the week ending April 24, the EIA highlighted that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the SPR, decreased by 6.2 million barrels from the week ending April 17 to the week ending April 24.