EIA Heating Oil Stocks Change

The EIA Heating Oil Stocks Change is the week-over-week change in stocks of high-sulfur distillate fuel oil, the heating-oil fraction of distillate fuel. High-sulfur means above 500 parts per million (ppm) of sulfur, and this pool mainly fuels space heating and power generation. The EIA (Energy Information Administration), the US Department of Energy statistics agency, publishes it weekly as Table 4 of its Weekly Petroleum Status Report (WPSR). It covers primary chain stocks at refineries, terminals, and pipelines through a cut-off sample covering about 90% of volumes.

The series has run since April 1979. It excludes retail dealers, home tanks, and the Northeast Heating Oil Reserve (held separately).

Each weekly period runs 7:01 a.m. Friday to 7:00 a.m. the next Friday, with reports due by 5:00 p.m. the following Monday. EIA releases the tables and highlights at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time each Wednesday, with the full report and analysis around 1:00 p.m. Weeks with federal holidays are usually delayed by one day, and each release covers the week ending the previous Friday. The release arrives with the full petroleum balance, from crude and gasoline to prices, and revisions appear only when they change the supply picture.

Distillate stocks split into 3 sulfur grades, each serving different users.

• Ultra-low sulfur distillate (15 ppm and under): the diesel for trucks, cars, and off-highway engines; it holds the largest share of distillate.
• Middle-sulfur distillate (above 15 to 500 ppm): a smaller pool for non-road, locomotive, and marine uses.
• High-sulfur distillate (above 500 ppm): the heating oil pool for space heating, power generation, and industrial burners; this indicator.
• Regions: the US total sums stocks across regions, and heating demand centers on the Northeast in winter.

The release of Thursday, October 14, 2021, showed total distillate stocks for the week ending October 8, 2021, flat at 129.3 million barrels. That was about 9% below the 5-year average. Inside that flat headline, the heating oil pool rose 0.3 to 8.3 million barrels while ultra-low sulfur diesel fell 0.4 to 117.6.

Crude rose 6.1 to 427.0 million barrels, and gasoline fell 2.0 to 223.1. The New York heating oil spot price was 2.338 dollars per gallon. The lesson is that the headline can hide offsetting grade moves, so the comparison against the 5-year average carries the tightness signal into winter.

1. Collect: EIA gathers company reports for the Friday to Friday period on seven weekly surveys, Forms EIA-800 through EIA-805 and EIA-809.
2. Impute gaps: missing or flagged values are filled by exponential smoothing, a prediction weighted toward the latest report. The illustrative weight is 0.8 on the latest week and 0.2 on all earlier weeks combined.
3. Scale to universe: the weekly sample is expanded by ratio estimation, scaling reporting firms to the full monthly universe, per product and region.
4. Sum establishment types: stocks are estimated separately for refineries, bulk terminals, and pipelines, then added together.
5. Publish and difference: Table 4 prints levels in million barrels rounded to 0.1, and the change is this week minus last week. For example, 8.3 minus 8.1 equals a 0.3-million-barrel build. A positive value means a stock build (an increase); a negative value means a draw (a decrease).