The report was extremely bearish for the refined fuels complex, exacerbating concerns about the demand destruction induced by the omicron. Gasoline consumption fell 1.5 million bpd or 9.8% from the previous week to 8.172 million bpd, the lowest since the last week of February 2021.

The EIA figures were in line with data from DTN Refined Fuels Demand which revealed an 18.4% drop in gas mileage in the last week of 2021. The new data could suggest some Americans have started to retire from driving amid a fourth wave of the pandemic that is being led by a highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Gasoline inventories climbed 10.1 million barrels to 232.8 million barrels compared to analysts’ expectations that inventories would only have increased by 1.1 million barrels.

Demand for middle distillates also contracted from 373,000 b / d to 3.739 million b / d, according to the EIA report. Distillate inventories increased 4.4 million barrels to 126.8 million barrels and are now about 16% below the five-year average. Analysts expected distillate inventories to increase 400,000 barrels from the previous week.

Total commercial oil inventories rose 10.2 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the past four weeks have averaged 21.4 million barrels per day, up 14.4% from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline products supplied to the United States have averaged 9.1 million barrels per day, up 15.2% from the same period last year. Supplies of distillate petroleum products have averaged 4.1 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, up 12.2% from the same period last year.

By late morning New York time, February WTI futures were up $ 1.25 to $ 78.24 per barrel. February NYMEX RBOB futures jumped nearly 3 cents to 2.3014 gallons, with first month ULSD futures rising 4.24 cents or 1.7% to 2.4505 gallons.

Liubov Georges can be contacted at [email protected]