vtsnowedin wrote:shortonoil wrote:"US Stocks in Million Barrels...
Crude Oil (Excluding SPR) -5.3 to 468.7
Total Motor Gasoline +2.5 to 228.0
Distillate Fuel Oil -1.3 to 155.7
Other Oils +0.4 to 488.0"
See graph half way down page:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016- ... ct-10-2016
Now -- just how stupid do you think the readership here is? Apparently pretty. You post one week of EIA data when the inventory went down. It has gone down every year at this time for the last 30. Pathetic!
What none sense are you talking about? The red line in the graph you link to has been going down sense June. You can read can't you?
Vtsnowdin is correct. I reviewed all 40 weeks of data so far for 2016 and here is what took place.
The first 26 weeks of the year, from beginning of January through the end of June there were 16 weeks with stock builds and 10 weeks with stock draws. Nevertheless inventory over those 26 weeks built a total of 59.2 million barrels in total storage.
From weeks 27 through 40 beginning July 1 and ending September 30 there are 14 weekly reports. Three weeks were draws, one week was in perfect balance and 10 weeks were builds. Total inventory change over those 14 weeks was a build of 4.5 million barrels in total storage.
Starting with October the EIA changed their calculation of commercial inventory by removing the 30.6 million of leased oil stocks. That creates a discontinuity between data for the first 40 weeks of the year and the last 2 weeks. There is nothing to be done about it other than to break calculations apart on each side of the discontinuity to prevent confusion by comparing apples to apples.
In the two weeks after the data changeover there have been additional stockpile draws of 8.7 Million barrels from inventory. When added to the 4.5 million barrel build we get (+4.5)+(-8.7) = -4.2, IOW a total stock draw of 4.2 million barrels to date in the second half of the year.
Subtracting the -30.6 inventory change from the discontinuity to the start of 2016 we get a beginning total inventory of 1977.1 for initial inventory and 2035.5 we get a total build to date of 58.4 million barrels. That works out to a weekly average of 1.39 million barrel build for the 42 weeks so far elapsed this year.
However it should also be noted that inventory only built one week in September. Of the last seven reports there was one build, one neutral and five draws for an inventory change of -33.7 million barrels taken from storage. That works out to a weekly average of -4.81 million barrel draw for these 7 weeks.
Subtracting the -4.2 draw for the second half to date from the 59.2 million barrel build in first half 2016 give a yearly storage build of 55.0 MM/bbl so far in 2016. If the draw rate continues to average -4.81/MM/bbl/week then in 11.43 weeks stockpiles will be where they were January 1, 2016. That actually puts us into 2017 as there are only 10 weeks remaining in this calendar year, but it is now plausible that stockpiles starting in January 2017 will be equivalent to what they were in January 2016. January 2016 was 167.7 MM/bbl above January 2015. January 2016 was 257.9 above January 2014, which was the January before the price crash of second half 2014 and is treated as 'normal'.
Taking the 55/MM/bbl cumulative build in 2016 to date plus this 257.9/MM/bbl difference between 'normal' and December 31, 2015 there are 312.9/MM/bbl of 'excess' commercial storage available to draw upon. If the average draw rate remains -4.81 a week for the medium term future it will take 65 weeks to return to 'normal' stockpile levels around the third week of January 2018.
If anything disrupts oil production rates between now and then the draw could take place more quickly, or if higher prices stimulate more fracking in the Bakken and Eagle Ford the draw could take place more slowly. Pick your choice and take your chances.
Compared to the 1980's with the Iran-Iraq war ending with the First Gulf War in the dawn of the 1992 the last three years have been relatively peaceful in the Persian Gulf. Iraq is producing the most oil it ever has and Iran is close to its pre sanction levels, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are producing strongly.
Comparatively speaking these four states are the core of OPEC and they are all pumping pretty hard ATM. Any kind of conflict on a broad scale in the Persian Gulf affecting one or more of these four countries would have a significant impact on world oil supply.
Looking at the 2001-2013 period there was a whole lot of trouble in one or more of these four major players at any randomly selected time. ISIS has been a very bad thing, but ultimately its impact on oil production in Iraq has been limited. ISIS never effectively penetrated the Iranian, Kuwaiti or Saudi Arabian oil production and distribution so once they were contained in Iraq things have gone remarkably well. Unlike the insurgents of the 2003-2013 period ISIS wasn't trying to lower Iraq's ability to produce and sell oil, they wanted to operate those resource extraction efforts to finance themselves.
On the other side of the coin ISIS could decide that they are about to lose and go for the mayhem scorched earth approach and start blowing up or otherwise damaging the oil pipelines and facilities that have allowed Iraq to reach all new levels of production.
