Preview: The promised official figures are in, and they are tighter than the API suggested: crude −7.2M, total US crude stocks −11M in a single week, refineries at 97.2%.

US Oil Stocks Take Another Heavy Hit

30 July 2026

In Wednesday's briefing we told you the official EIA report for the week ending 24 July was due after we hit send, and that we would follow up with the actual figures. Here they are — and they are materially tighter than the provisional estimates.

The official numbers — week ending 24 July

The API had suggested a draw of about 3.3 million barrels; the analyst survey expected 1.3 million. The actual commercial crude draw was 7.2 million barrels — more than double the API estimate — taking stocks down to 404.5 million, around 6% below the five-year seasonal average.

That draw came despite refineries already running extremely hard. Utilisation climbed to 97.2%, with crude inputs reaching 17.34 million barrels per day, up 271,000 b/d on the week. Gasoline stocks were effectively unchanged at 211.3 million barrels, around 7% below the five-year average, while distillates gained 1.1 million barrels to 110.6 million but remain roughly 10% below normal seasonal levels.

The number to emphasise

More striking is what happened to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The SPR fell another 3.8 million barrels to 307.7 million — its lowest since March 1983, and 95.1 million barrels (23.6%) below where it stood a year ago.

Put the two together and the picture sharpens: total US crude stocks — commercial inventories plus the reserve — declined by about 11 million barrels in a single week, from 723.1 million to 712.2 million.

America did not merely draw heavily from commercial storage. It simultaneously drew heavily from its strategic reserve, while refineries operated at 97.2% of capacity.

Where the draw happened

The regional detail tells you where the pressure sits. PADD 3 — the Gulf Coast — lost 6.5 million barrels on its own, falling to 233.3 million, while Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI futures, fell another 0.8 million to just 18.6 million barrels. We will examine what that concentration means in a coming briefing.

What it means

Wednesday's briefing argued that America's safety margin is getting thinner. The official data did not soften that argument — it strengthened it. The commercial buffer fell instead of building, the strategic buffer fell with it, and the refining system worked even closer to its ceiling to do it.

The system is still functioning. The margin for error just got measurably smaller.

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AmericasOilWatch — independent monitoring of oil supply, inventories, infrastructure and energy resilience across the Americas. Market prices are snapshots rather than forecasts. All figures above are from the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report for the week ending 24 July 2026, released 29 July.