The latest Platts survey is looking for a 730,000 barrel draw in crude oil stocks, an 820,000 barrel drop in primary gasoline supplies, and a 940,000 barrel increase in distillate inventories.  Our cursory cut at the numbers would suggest that for crude oil, runs remained about steady while gross imports eased back below 9.5 MMB/D.  However, domestic production has been creeping up lately and our inputs would imply a build in crude oil stocks.  For gasoline, we would look for gross imports to fall off further, continuing the recent trend in response to a closed Trans-Atlantic arb.  Implied demand probably picked up a bit, while refinery output was roughly steady with the week before.  Adding everything up would suggest a gasoline stock draw less than what the consensus is looking for.  Finally, for distillate, inordinately high implied demand for the week ending August 27 would suggest to us a falloff last week was likely, perhaps back toward 3.8 MMB/D or less, as a simple reversion to what we estimate to be the underlying mean given the current state of manufacturing activity.  With supply assumed to be steady with the prior week our numbers lead to a distillate stock build somewhat less than market expectations.

Tags: platts energy inventory survey, platts inventory estimate, Platts oil inventory assessment, platts survey