U.S. Midwest Gasoline Inventories Hit Record Low, Oil Prices Rise to Intraday High
nashnova research
U.S. Midwest gasoline stocks fell to their lowest level on record, while nationwide gasoline inventories dropped to a level unseen since November 2014 — WTI crude jumped to its intraday high as product-market tightness repriced crude.
How tight are gasoline stocks?
Midwest gasoline inventories dropped to their all-time low. Nationwide stocks fell by 1.684 million barrels in a single week, hitting the lowest since November 2014.
This means → the shortage is not a regional blip — the entire country is drawing down gasoline faster than it can be replaced.
WTI crude futures jumped to their intraday high right after the data release. The market read gasoline tightness as an extra demand signal for crude.
Is diesel even worse?
Distillate (diesel) inventories plunged by 2.251 million barrels, a stark reversal from the API's prior forecast of a 300,000-barrel build.
Seasonal diesel stocks sit at their historic floor, with every region drawing down — no exceptions.
The most-active diesel contract held near $4.75 per gallon. In plain terms = diesel is expensive, scarce, and still being consumed — a textbook supply squeeze.
Why are crude stockpiles rising instead?
Commercial crude inventories rose by 922,000 barrels, roughly matching the API forecast but running opposite to analysts' expectation of a 710,000-barrel draw.
Cushing hub — the core U.S. crude pricing and delivery point — climbed to 24 million barrels, the highest since May and the second straight weekly build.
This reflects a split signal: refined products (gasoline, diesel) are draining fast, yet crude itself is piling up. The bottleneck is not crude supply — it is the refining step that turns crude into usable fuel.
What is wrong with refineries?
Over the past three weeks, U.S. refinery crude throughput fell by a cumulative 1.3 million barrels per day, dropping to the lowest since May.
Weekly refinery utilization declined by 1.5 percentage points, far exceeding the market's expected 0.3-point drop. In plain terms = refineries throttled back sharply; crude sits in storage while product shelves empty out.
Import patterns shifted: Brazilian crude imports surged to nearly 500,000 bpd (the highest since November 2024). Canadian pipeline crude moved into contango — a futures structure where later delivery costs more than nearby, signaling weak spot demand — while Houston WTI remained in backwardation, and the light-heavy spread currently favors light crude.
How long can the strategic reserve keep releasing?
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) shed another 785,000 barrels in the week. Since late March, cumulative releases have reached 132 million barrels.
Roughly 40 million barrels remain before the planned 172-million-barrel target is met. This means → at the current pace, the SPR cushion is narrowing fast.
The Department of Energy re-tendered the sale of 40 million barrels of sour crude, to be physically returned between 2027 and 2029. The minimum premium dropped from a peak of 22% to 7–9.5% — raising doubts about whether enough buyers will step up.
Could a diesel export ban return to the agenda?
Weekly product exports rebounded to 1.5 million bpd, even as diesel inventories stayed pinned near record lows.
This reflects a policy tension: domestic diesel is critically short, yet exports continue at elevated levels.
The previously cooled debate over a diesel export ban may re-enter the market's line of sight. In plain terms = if stocks keep falling while exports hold steady, restricting diesel exports could shift from talk to a live policy option.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。