Projecting US inventory into year-end

Factors which have driven US crude oil inventory draws in recent weeks haveincluded higher-than-normal refinery utilisation, strong oil product demand, andstorm-driven disruption to imports. With product inventory surpluses risingagain and given the fact that the frequency of US landfalling hurricanes dropssignificantly in November, two of these factors look as if they will soon fade.However, even with imports rising back to relatively high levels and refineryutilisation staying low after maintenance season finishes (which seems unlikely)we believe the US crude oil inventory surplus is unlikely to expand again, helpingto buttress the improving price outlook in 2017.