US crude inventories seen down for fourth week in a row

U.S. crude oil stockpiles are expected to have fallen for a fourth consecutive week, with gasoline and distillate inventories also forecast to have declined last week, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday.

Six analysts polled by Reuters estimated on average that crude inventories fell by about 1.6 million barrels in the week to May 5.

Crude inventories fell by 1.3 million barrels in the week ending April 28 to 459.6 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.1 million-barrel drop.

The poll was conducted ahead of reports from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, due at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT) on Tuesday, and the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, due at 10:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) on Wednesday.

Analysts estimated stockpiles of gasoline fell by about 1.3 million barrels last week, while distillate, which include diesel and heating oil, decreased by about 800,000 barrels.

The rate of refinery utilization was seen 0.6 percentage point higher from 90.7% of total capacity for the week ended April 28, the poll found.

All figures for stocks are in millions of barrels. Refinery runs change is measured in percentage points.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Ananya Bajpai in Bengaluru; editing by Barbara Lewis)