Macquarie Strategists Forecast USA Crude Inventory Rise

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late Monday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists revealed that they are forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be up 4.2 million barrels for the week ending March 28.

“This follows a 3.3 million barrel draw for the week ending March 21 and compares to our initial expectation for a larger crude build this week,” the strategists said in the report.

“For this week’s crude balance, from refineries, we model crude runs down meaningfully (-0.4 million barrels per day) following a strong print last week,” they added.

“Among net imports, we model a moderate increase, with exports (-1.0 million barrels per day) and imports (-0.7 million barrels per day) much lower on a nominal basis,” they continued.

The strategists warned in the report that timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in this week’s crude balance.

“From implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers), we look for a bounce (+0.3 million barrels per day) this week,” they said in the report.

“Rounding out the picture, we anticipate another small increase in SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] stocks (+0.3 MM BBL) this week,” they added.

The strategists also noted in the report that, “among products”, they “look for draws in gasoline (-0.9 million barrels) and distillate (-4.1 million barrels), with jet stocks effectively flat”.

“We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.4 million barrels per day for the week ending March 28,” they said.

In its latest weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing, which was released on March 26 and included data for the week ending March 21, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the SPR, decreased by 3.3 million barrels from the week ending March 14 to the week ending March 21.

This EIA report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 433.6 million barrels on March 21, 437.0 million barrels on March 14, and 448.2 million barrels on March 22, 2024. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 396.1 million barrels on March 21, 395.9 million barrels on March 14, and 363.1 million barrels on March 22, 2024, the report revealed. The EIA report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding.

Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.600 billion barrels on March 21, the report showed. Total petroleum stocks were up 3.5 million barrels week on week and up 19.9 million barrels year on year, the report pointed out.

The EIA report also highlighted that the price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil was $68.52 per barrel on March 21, 2025, which it said was “$1.09 more than a week ago and $12.58 less than a year ago”.

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone on March 24 by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists revealed that they were forecasting that U.S. crude inventories would be down 2.8 million barrels for the week ending March 21.

The EIA’s next weekly petroleum status report is scheduled to be released on April 2. It will include data for the week ending March 28.

In a separate oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late Monday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists noted that “both WTI and Brent speculative (MM + Other) net length built over the last week”.

“WTI spec net length grew with new long interest besting short covering. Brent showed a significantly larger move with over three times new long interest as added shorts,” the strategists added.

“Over the last two weeks, Brent Managed Money net length has improved by 110K contracts after decreasing for six straight weeks by a total of 150K,” they continued.

“In contrast, commercial participants have reduced their net length by 38K contract equivalents in the previous week likely due to increased E&P hedging,” they went on to state.

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