EIA Crude Oil Inventories

The release

How it is measured.

The Administration, the statistical agency of the Department of Energy, surveys refineries, storage terminals and pipeline companies every week; replying is compulsory. The report gives stocks of crude oil, petrol and distillate fuels, refinery activity, imports, exports and an estimate of production, with a separate figure for the storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, where the benchmark United States futures contract is delivered. Commercial stocks leave out the government’s strategic reserve.

Why markets watch it.

Stocks rise when more oil is supplied than used and fall when less is, so the weekly change is the most frequent official evidence of that balance in the largest oil-consuming country. An industry group, the American Petroleum Institute, circulates its own estimate the evening before.

How it is commonly misread.

A rise or fall means little without the season: stocks build and draw in a regular annual pattern, and a change is judged against what is usual for the week. One week’s figure is also swung by the timing of a few tankers arriving or leaving. The weekly numbers are estimates and are revised in the Administration’s monthly data. Natural gas has a separate weekly storage report, on a different day.

An explanation of why the release is followed, not a view on what any market will do when it is published. Educational information, not investment advice or a recommendation to trade.