Release date: September 14, 2016  |  Next release date: September 21, 2016

EIA's weekly crude oil inventory data will soon be presented without lease stocks

Starting with the Weekly Petroleum Status Report (WPSR) published on October 13, 2016, the U.S. total commercial crude oil inventory weekly data series will no longer include lease stocks. This change reflects our understanding that lease stocks are not yet available for commercial use and that in many cases operators do not count them as production until they are transferred off of the lease via pipeline, rail, or trucks to tank farms for storage.

Crude oil lease stocks, currently about 31 million barrels, refer to oil that is stored in tanks at sites across the United States where producers are drilling on leased land. Lease stocks have been relatively small and stable, ranging from just 30.6 million barrels (5.8%) to 33.1 million barrels (7.4%) from January 2014 through June 2016. Over that same period, total U.S. commercial crude oil stocks have increased from 367 million barrels to 529 million barrels, as rising U.S. crude oil production contributed to growing commercial crude oil inventories. As of the week ending September 9, the total U.S. commercial crude oil inventory was about 511 million barrels including about 31 million barrels of lease stocks.

Given the lack of significant changes in lease stocks, the change to exclude lease stocks from reported commercial inventories beginning with the WPSR published on October 13 should not affect WPSR users who focus on week-to-week changes in commercial crude oil inventories. Not accounting for other stock changes reported by operators of pipelines and tank farms, commercial crude oil inventories for the week ending October 7 (published on October 13) will be about 31 million barrels lower because the lease stocks will no longer be included in the total (Figure 1).

Analysts accessing EIA's weekly crude oil inventory data in the WPSR should know that the sourcekey and labels will not change for the commercial crude oil inventory data series in the WPSR Excel and CSV files. EIA will provide backcasted weekly historical commercial crude oil inventory data excluding lease stocks in advance of the October 13 WPSR publication. Additionally, once the data are published on October 13, other places on EIA.gov that show the commercial crude inventory data, such as This Week in Petroleum, will display the revised data series that will exclude lease stocks.

The prior series that included lease stocks data, which will not be updated after publication of the October 6 WPSR, will be added as a new row in the Petroleum Data Table with a new sourcekey for those wishing to access that historical information. EIA will provide more details in the coming weeks explaining where readers can test, in advance, that their applications are accessing the new WPSR data series that will begin excluding lease stocks in the report to be published on October 13.

EIA's Petroleum Supply Monthly (PSM) has always accounted for lease stocks as a distinct crude oil category, allowing analysts to readily assess total crude inventories both with and without lease stocks. Starting with the monthly data for July, which gets published in late September, the PSM will cease reporting crude oil lease stocks as well. The WPSR, however, had not made this same distinction. Once EIA starts to report weekly commercial crude inventory data without lease stocks, the weekly crude inventory data will be directly comparable to the PSM commercial inventory data series without lease stocks.

U.S. gasoline and diesel fuel prices decrease

The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price was $2.20 per gallon on September 12, a decrease of two cents from the previous week and down 17 cents from the same time last year. The Midwest price fell five cents to $2.14 per gallon, while the East Coast and Gulf Coast prices each fell three cents to $2.15 per gallon and $1.97 per gallon, respectively. The West Coast price increased by four cents to $2.63 per gallon, and the Rocky Mountain price rose less than one cent, remaining at $2.27 per gallon.

The U.S. average diesel fuel price dropped by one cent to $2.40 per gallon, down 12 cents from the same time last year. The East Coast, Midwest, and Gulf Coast prices all dropped one cent to $2.40 per gallon, $2.38 per gallon, and $2.26 per gallon, respectively. The Rocky Mountain price dropped less than one cent, remaining at $2.49 per gallon. The West Coast price rose less than one cent to $2.67 per gallon.

Propane inventories gain

U.S. propane stocks increased by 2.0 million barrels last week to 101.1 million barrels as of September 9, 2016, 3.4 million barrels (3.5%) higher than a year ago. Gulf Coast, East Coast, and Midwest inventories increased by 1.2 million barrels, 0.5 million barrels, and 0.3 million barrels, respectively. Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories rose slightly, remaining virtually unchanged. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 2.3% of total propane inventories.

For questions about This Week in Petroleum, contact the Petroleum Markets Team at 202-586-4522.

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Retail prices (dollars per gallon)

	Retail prices	Change from last
	09/12/16	Week	Year
Gasoline	2.202	-0.021	-0.173
Diesel	2.399	-0.008	-0.118

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Futures prices (dollars per gallon*)

	Futures prices	Change from last
	09/09/16	Week	Year
Crude oil	45.88	1.44	1.25
Gasoline	1.361	0.059	-0.009
Heating oil	1.430	0.020	-0.120
*Note: Crude oil price in dollars per barrel.

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Stocks (million barrels)

	Stocks	Change from last
	09/09/16	Week	Year
Crude oil	510.8	-0.6	54.9
Gasoline	228.4	0.6	11.0
Distillate	162.8	4.6	8.8
Propane	101.090	1.963	3.397