SEB Strips 6.1 Million Barrels From U.S. Crude Build as SPR Releases Distort Weekly Count
The 17.4 million barrel commercial crude build for the week ending August 7 shrinks to 11.3 million once SPR releases are netted out, SEB calculates.
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased by 4.4 million barrels in the week ending August 14 (2026-08-14) to 428.8 million barrels, according to analysis sent to Rigzone on Thursday (2026-08-20) by Naeem Aslam, CIO at Zaye Capital Markets. The build followed an even larger 17.4 million barrel addition recorded by the EIA for the prior week ending August 7 (2026-08-07), released on August 12 (2026-08-12). Back-to-back builds of that scale, in a normal supply environment, would signal meaningful loosening. This one is more complicated.4
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell from 304.8 million barrels on July 31 (2026-07-31) to 298.7 million barrels on August 7 (2026-08-07), a draw of 6.1 million barrels. Bjarne Schieldrop, Chief Commodities Analyst at SEB, noted in a report sent to Rigzone on August 13 (2026-08-13) that the underlying commercial build for that week was closer to 11.3 million barrels once the SPR release was netted out. The headline figure captured crude moving from government storage into commercial tanks, not a change in the market's organic supply position.4
SPR barrels flowing into commercial inventories lift the EIA count without reflecting any shift in upstream production, import trends or refinery procurement. The distinction carries weight for product traders, whose gasoline and jet fuel balances depend on what the physical market is actually generating rather than on drawdown schedules set in Washington.4
Macquarie strategists, in a report circulated the week of August 17 (2026-08-17) before the EIA's most recent release, forecast a further 3.9 million barrel crude build for the week ending August 14, alongside a 5.3 million barrel SPR draw. The bank projected a sharp swing in net imports, with exports running approximately 0.7 million barrels per day higher and imports roughly 0.8 million barrels per day lower. Cargo timing, Macquarie added, remained a source of potential volatility in the weekly balance.4
The American Petroleum Institute's early estimate for the same week pointed to a crude draw of 328,000 barrels, OilPrice.com reported on August 18 (2026-08-18). The eventual EIA print came in at a 4.4 million barrel build. The swing of more than 4.7 million barrels between the two reads is a reminder that any single weekly figure is approximate, particularly when SPR flows and cargo timing are both in play.3,4
On the demand side, the picture offers little offset. Motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.9 million barrels per day over the four weeks through mid-August, down 0.9 percent from the same period last year, the EIA reported. Jet fuel product supplied was 2.2 percent below the year-ago four-week average. End-of-summer consumption is trailing the prior-year pace on both products.4,1
RBOB gasoline front-month was trading at $3.28 per gallon as of 00:48 UTC on Tuesday (2026-08-25), up 0.31 percent. NYMEX WTI crude front-month stood at $85.11 per barrel and ICE Brent crude front-month at $92.09 per barrel as of the same timestamp. The mild firmness in RBOB relative to demand softness suggests the market is reading supply-side factors more closely than consumption data for now. [live prices]
EIA data for the week ending June 19 (2026-06-19) showed U.S. refineries running at 96.1 percent capacity utilization, processing 17.1 million barrels per day, with gasoline output at 9.5 million barrels per day and distillate production at 5.2 million barrels per day. High throughput at that point in the season contributed to the inventory accumulation that followed through July and August.2
The scale of SPR releases over the past twelve months puts the weekly accounting problem in sharper relief. The reserve held 403.2 million barrels on August 8, 2025 (2025-08-08) and had fallen to 298.7 million barrels by August 7, 2026 (2026-08-07) — a decline of more than 100 million barrels. Each week that government crude moves into commercial storage, the EIA headline diverges from what supply-demand fundamentals alone would generate, making direct comparisons with historical averages increasingly unreliable.4
Distillate stocks have been moving in the other direction. OilPrice.com's August 18 (2026-08-18) coverage noted distillate inventories continuing to sink even as crude builds accumulated. With jet fuel demand already running below year-ago levels, the middle-distillate and jet fuel chain looks more constrained than the crude numbers imply, and that divergence is its own signal.3,1
The next EIA weekly petroleum status report will reveal whether the SPR drew close to Macquarie's projected 5.3 million barrels for the week ending August 14 and how much of Aslam's 4.4 million barrel commercial build traces back to government releases. If the SPR draw comes in near that level, Schieldrop's adjustment methodology of netting out reserve flows to find the underlying commercial change will matter again, and the adjusted build will be sharply smaller than the EIA headline suggests.4