The EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report, Decoded

The most market-moving weekly dataset in oil. Latest (week ending 2026-08-07): crude stocks built 17.4 million barrels to 424.4 million; refineries ran at 96.2%. Released Wednesdays 10:30 a.m. ET — the full dashboard lives on fundamentals; this page explains how to read it.

This Week at a Glance

Series	Level	WoW	Week ending
Crude stocks (ex-SPR), Mb	424.4	+17.4	2026-08-07
Gasoline stocks, Mb	208.7	-1.0	2026-08-07
Distillate stocks, Mb	107.1	-0.0	2026-08-07
Cushing crude, Mb	22.6	+1.6	2026-08-07
Refinery utilization, %	96.2	-0.3	2026-08-07
Crude production, Mb/d	13.8	+0.0	2026-08-07

Full grid with demand, trade flows and the 5-year seasonal bands: EIA fundamentals. Release countdowns are in the reporting calendar there.

How to Read Builds and Draws

The reflexes

Crude build → bearish (more supply than refiners needed) — unless imports spiked or refineries were down for maintenance.
Crude draw → bullish — especially at Cushing, the WTI delivery point, where low tanks tighten the futures curve directly.
Product draws with high refinery runs → the bullish combination: demand is absorbing everything refiners can make.

The traps

The market trades the surprise versus analyst expectations, not the raw number.
Holiday weeks, hurricanes and maintenance season distort single weeks — trust 4-week averages over one print.
SPR releases and fills move total stocks without saying anything about the market — always use commercial (ex-SPR) figures.

EIA Report FAQ

What did the latest EIA report show?

For the week ending 2026-08-07, US commercial crude inventories (excluding the SPR) built 17.4 million barrels to 424.4 million. Gasoline stocks fell 1.0 million; distillates fell 0.0 million. A build is generally bearish for prices; a draw is bullish — relative to what analysts expected.

When does the EIA report come out?

The Weekly Petroleum Status Report is released Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. Eastern (delayed one day after federal holidays). The American Petroleum Institute (API) publishes its own survey the evening before, Tuesdays at 4:30 p.m. ET, which often moves prices in anticipation. Natural gas storage follows Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.

Why does the EIA report move oil prices?

It's the highest-quality weekly window into US supply and demand — and the US is both the largest producer and consumer. Prices react to the surprise, not the level: a 2-million-barrel build when analysts expected a draw is bearish even though the number itself is routine. Cushing stocks and implied demand ("product supplied") often matter as much as the headline.

What is the difference between the API and EIA reports?

API figures come from a voluntary industry survey; EIA data is mandatory and more complete, so EIA is the official record. When the two disagree, the market treats EIA as the correction. The overnight API print mostly serves to set expectations for the EIA release the next morning.