The EIA will change its surveys to get more accurate crude output data, and also change its accounting methods for crude oil blending, Joe DeCarolis, an official with the EIA, said on Twitter.
The EIA has posted three consecutive weeks of relatively high adjustments to crude inventory data. In the most recent data, the EIA reported an adjustment factor about 2.27 million barrels per day (bpd), on par with the largest adjustment ever since records began in 2001. This data serves as a balancing item when the EIA's supply and demand data do not align, said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst for the Americas at Kpler.
"The EIA typically is missing some element of supply or demand each week, but the magnitude of this number has grown significantly in recent years," Smith said.
The EIA recently completed a 90-day assessment of the high adjustment figures, DeCarolis said. Some reported U.S. crude oil exports include other products, likely natural gasoline and naphthas, which can be blended into crude or reported as crude exports, he added.
"That would mean that the amount of actual U.S. crude exports is slightly less than what is reported," he said.
U.S. crude exports are difficult to measure on a weekly
basis, Kpler's Smith said, and the data's margin of error has
increased in recent years with more exports.
The United States exported about 5.63 million bpd of
crude, the highest on record, EIA data showed. In comparison,
the strongest week for U.S. crude exports from data and
analytics firm Kpler was 4.48 million bpd in the week ended
Sept. 23.
Meanwhile, crude oil blending is also contributing to
the higher adjustment figures, largely due to field condensate,
which is often collected in gas gathering lines or at the inlet
to gas processing plants and introduced into the crude oil
system as light hydrocarbons, DeCarolis said.
Production data on these liquids is not collected in the
EIA's current natural gas or crude oil surveys, and they largely
go unaccounted for as they enter the crude oil system, DeCarolis
said.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Leslie Adler and
David Gregorio)
