US propane and propylene stocks reached 80.65 million barrels for the reporting week ending October 3, beating record stocks of 79.56 million barrels during the previous week, Energy Information Administration data showed Wednesday.
US stocks showed a boost of 1.085 million barrels for the reporting week. These stocks declined by 548,000 barrels during the comparable week last year. US stocks are now 21.3% higher compared to the beginning on October 2013.
Market sources indicated last week that stocks may show a downward trend as the winter demand season approaches. But some market sources suggested the stocks would rather increase in the range of 600,000-900,000 barrels with lower demand.
Midwest stocks rose 3,000 barrels to 27.96 million barrels. They declined by 22,000 in the previous week.
Gulf Coast stocks rose 768,000 barrels to 43.22 million barrels, beating last week’s historic high for that region. These inventories were down 538,000 barrels in the comparable week last year.
Atlantic Coast stocks rose 74,000 barrels to 5.94 million barrels.
US stocks of propylene for nonfuel use decreased once again by 175,000 barrels week on week to 2.65 million barrels. These stocks have declined since the week ending June 6, when the nonfuel use was 4.23 million barrels.
Imports in the reporting week were up 58,000 b/d to 115,000 b/d.
Implied demand decreased 2.7% week on week to 1.12 million b/d.
Gulf Coast propane at the Enterprise terminal in the Mont Belvieu, Texas, hub was trading at $1.06125/gal on IntercontinentalExchange Wednesday morning, some 2.3 cents higher than at 3:15 pm EDT (1915 GMT) Tuesday.
– Platts.com
