EIA Weekly Refinery Utilization Rates WoW

The Weekly U.S. Percent Utilization of Refinery Operable Capacity measures weekly refinery throughput divided by operable capacity. Throughput means crude oil, unfinished oils and plant liquids run through distillation units, while operable capacity means ready distillation capacity. It is one series inside the Weekly Petroleum Status Report from EIA, the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. It covers U.S. operable refineries, not the count of plants running, demand, gasoline output or storage use.

Weekly data usually cover Friday 7:01 a.m. through the next Friday 7:00 a.m., with Monday 5:00 p.m. as the submission deadline. Releases usually fall Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time for tables and highlights, then 1:00 p.m. for the full report. Values describe the week ending the prior Friday morning, with holiday weeks delayed by one day. Each release pairs the rate with input and output tables by PADD district and rarely revises past weeks unless a fix changes supply understanding.

Moves come from throughput changes, capacity updates and related oil flows.

• Gross inputs: crude oil, unfinished oils and plant liquids run through distillation units in the week.
• Operable capacity: latest monthly ready distillation capacity, so it shifts only when monthly data shift.
• Crude inputs and output: weekly input volumes plus gasoline and distillate production explain throughput shifts.
• Regional splits: national and PADD district results show where throughput changed.

For the week ending August 10, 2018, inputs averaged 18.0 million barrels per day, up 383,000, while utilization reached 98.1%. Commercial crude stocks still rose 6.8 million barrels to 414.2 million as imports jumped 1,083,000 barrels per day to 9.0 million. Gasoline stocks fell 0.7 million barrels while distillate stocks rose 3.6 million, as gasoline output averaged 10.2 million barrels per day and distillate 5.3 million.

For the week ending August 17, 2018, inputs slipped 89,000 barrels to 17.9 million barrels per day while utilization held at 98.1%. Crude stocks then drew 5.8 million barrels to 408.4 million.

1. Weekly sample: EIA collects Form EIA-800 reports from a cut-off sample of the largest firms covering about 90% of volumes. Missing reports use exponential smoothing, or weighted past values, of each firm's prior weeks.
2. Ratio expansion: EIA scales the weekly sample to all firms using lagged monthly census totals. The weekly total equals the weekly sample sum times the ratio of the all-firm monthly total to the sample monthly total. EIA may adjust the ratio for unusual events missing from lagged monthly data.
3. Weekly inputs: This method directly estimates total gross inputs to refineries and production.
4. Operable capacity: EIA uses the latest reported monthly operable capacity as the base.
5. Utilization ratio: Utilization equals 100 times gross inputs divided by operable capacity with unrounded numbers. For example, 16,500 divided by 18,000 times 100 equals 91.7%, rising to 93.3% if inputs reach 16,800, a rise of 1.6 percentage points.
6. Review: The review team checks totals before Wednesday release and requires resubmission for errors above 5%. EIA publishes revisions only for substantive supply effects. Lagged monthly capacity overstates capacity and understates utilization until shutdowns enter monthly data.