api and eia diff Pure speculation :
api yesterday report draw of 4.62M Today EIA reports build of 3.3M excluding SPR(api excludes SPR ). That is a difference of approx 8M . 8M divided by 7 days is approx 1M per day.
Iraq imports shows an abonormal 900K per day incrase compared to last week.
These 2 roughly fits .
So my speculation is that there should be a large fleet carrying some 8M bbls reaching the US this week, which is recorded by EIA but not by API due to timing issues. We maybe able to find out what this fleet was if everyone try searching. If that is the case, this Iraqi oil import surge ought to be a one-tme event and does not distort the longer term supply/demand. If anybody find the result please post here. Of course I maybe wrong after all.
This also explains nicely why oil price did not respond to the 2 nice draws in inventory per EIA. during the last 2 weeks..... the big guys know such a big fleet is coming . Now if my speculation holds , with this thing gone we can expect a back to normal draw next week on EIA. However next Tuesday's api will probably pick that up and shows a build though
JIMO and not an investment advice. Corrections welcome.