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EIA says U.S. crude imports up from last year
Petroleum News Staff
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration said June 26 that U.S. crude oil imports averaged 9.3 million barrels per day for the week ending June 20, down 970,000 bpd from the previous week.
But, the agency said, crude oil imports have still averaged 10 million bpd over the last four weeks, up 765,000 bpd more than the average over the same period last year.
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged nearly 15.5 million bpd for the week ending June 20, down 344,000 bpd from the previous week. With crude oil imports down, the agency said, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) fell by 4.1 million barrels. Crude oil inventories are now 36.8 million barrels less than last year at this time.
As of June 20, total commercial inventories are 110.8 million barrels less than last year. MMS: No leasing interest in remote Alaska basins The Minerals Management Service said June 26 that it has received no expressions of interest for oil and gas lease sales in the Norton basin, Hope basin or Chukchi Sea in the outer continental shelf offshore Alaska. A call for interest closed June 23.
MMS said the areas are made available for leasing through a “special interest” process that is new to the Alaska Region. The agency’s call for information and nominations asked industry to “nominate specific areas where they were willing to commit to exploration.”
“These frontier areas could have a great amount of resources, but because of their remoteness they also have high costs associated with exploring and developing any resources that might be found,” said MMS Regional Director John Goll. “This approach allows us to test interest for access to the area without spending a lot of on a full upfront evaluation. We will ask again next year.”
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