BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 19. Industry oil stocks within OECD Europe saw a decline of 5.3 million barrels, which is half the usual October drop, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said, Trend reports.
Thus, according to the data, they reached 919.3 million barrels, still 30.6 million barrels below the five-year average.
At the same time, crude oil inventories decreased by 1.6 million barrels, with the Netherlands leading the decline at 2.7 million barrels. The significant drop since August brought the country's stocks to the lowest point since February 2022. NGL and feedstock inventories increased by 2.2 million barrels. Oil product stocks only saw a modest decline of 5.9 million barrels, in contrast to the five-year average of 12.5 million barrels.
As the agency noted, weak petrochemical demand resulted in a counter-seasonal increase of 1.6 million barrels in other product inventories, reaching their highest level in three years. Notably, in Germany, other products surged by 3.2 million barrels, a 34-percent increase.
Furthermore, middle distillate stocks decreased by 5 million barrels, less than the usual 9.8 million barrel drop, as inventory builds in France (0.8 million barrels) and Germany (0.5 million barrels) offset the decline.
Fuel oil fell by 2.3 million barrels, reaching a 14-month low. Gasoline stocks saw a counter-seasonal decrease of 0.2 million barrels. The Netherlands notably reduced gasoline inventories by 0.9 million barrels to only 2.3 million barrels, the lowest since July 2018.