Weekly oil data from the US Energy Information Administration and the American Petroleum Institute should show a build of about 1.8 million barrels in US commercial crude stocks for the reporting week ended Friday, analysts polled by Platts said Monday.
API is scheduled to release its weekly data at 4:30 pm EDT (2030 GMT) Tuesday. EIA's weekly oil statistics will be released at 10:30 am EDT (1430 GMT) Wednesday.
The ongoing movement of crude stocks out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve into commercial inventories will keep the stock-building trend intact.
Contributing to the stock build will be a decline in refinery utilization rates. Analysts expect refinery utilization to decrease 0.8 percentage points to 88.5%, based on EIA numbers for the previous week.
Gasoline stocks are expected to decline 1.2 million barrels. With refiners switching to a higher yield for distillates over the past several reports and a continued low level of imports, inventories are expected to drop.
Inventories of middle distillates are expected by analysts to build 1.2 million barrels. High output at a time of year when demand is low should cause distillate inventories to build. Stock-building has been modest, but there is still another two months before demand should start to ramp up.
