U.S. commercial crude oil stocks are expected to have increased 2.5 million barrels during the reporting week ended October 10, according to a Platts analysis and survey of oil analysts.The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is scheduled to release its weekly data at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) Thursday.

The EIA five-year average shows inventories have typically risen 410,000 barrels during this reporting week.

U.S. crude oil stocks are well-supplied by recent historical standards. The total U.S. crude oil inventory rose 5 million barrels the week ended October 3, led by record-high imports from Canada. At 361.7 million barrels, crude oil stocks were 2% above the EIA five-year average (2009-2013).

Analysts expect U.S. refinery utilization rates to have fallen 0.54 percentage point to 88.76%. EIA data showed U.S. refinery runs at 15.55 million barrels per day (b/d) the week ended October 3, which is about 1% above the five-year average.

Some refineries have delayed performing maintenance, instead choosing to continue processing crude oil to take advantage of relatively strong margins. Meantime, market sources said a crude oil unit restarted at ExxonMobil's 149,500 b/d Torrance, California, refinery over the weekend of October 4-5.

GASOLINE STOCKS SEEN FALLING

U.S. gasoline stocks likely were 1.6 million barrels lower the week ended October 10, according to analysts surveyed. The EIA five-year average shows inventories often decrease over this reporting week by 2.2 million barrels.

At 209.7 million barrels for the reporting week ended October 3, U.S. gasoline stocks were 1% below the five-year average of EIA data.

Gasoline stocks on the U.S. Atlantic Coast -- home to the New York Harbor-delivered New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) RBOB contract -- were at 54.3 million barrels for the reporting week ending October 3, which is 1.1% above the EIA five-year average, after a 1.4 million-barrel increase.

U.S. distillate stocks are expected to have decreased 1.8 million barrels during the latest reporting week. The EIA five-year average shows U.S. distillate stocks typically fall 1.9 million barrels this reporting week.

One seasonal source of distillate demand comes from the agriculture sector, helping pull inventories lower.

"Despite lower prices for the grains market, they still need to harvest the fields," noted Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlooks.

"That said, I'm hearing that we're barely halfway through harvest and that's going to eventually give way to commercial demand for holiday sales: jet and diesel," he said.

The amount of distillates carried by vessels departing the U.S. for Europe fell 170,000 metric tonnes (mt) the week ended October 10 to 200,000 mt, according to Platts cFlow ship-tracking software.
Source: Platts