Section 3. Petroleum

Monthly Energy Review, March, 2005

Total petroleum imports (1) were 12.7 million barrels per day in January 2005, 2 percent lower than the previous month's rate but 8 percent higher than the January 2004 rate.

In January 2005, 20.5 million barrels per day of petroleum products were supplied for domestic use, 1 percent higher than the January 2004 rate. Motor gasoline accounted for 43 percent of the total; distillate fuel oil, 21 percent; and kerosene-type jet fuel, 7 percent.

Motor gasoline product supplied during January 2005 was 8.8 million barrels per day, 5 percent lower than the previous month's rate but 1 percent higher than the January 2004 rate. Total motor gasoline stocks were 219 million barrels at the end of January 2005, 4 million barrels above the stock level in the previous month and 11 million barrels above the level one year earlier.

Distillate fuel oil product supplied during January 2005 was 4.2 million barrels per day, 1 percent higher than the previous month's rate but 3 percent lower than the January 2004 rate. Distillate fuel oil ending stocks for January 2005 were 121 million barrels, 5 million barrels below the stock level in the previous month and 1 million barrels below the level 1 year earlier.

Kerosene-type jet fuel product supplied in January 2005 was 1.5 million barrels per day, 8 percent below the previous month's rate but 1 percent higher than the January 2004 rate. Kerosene-type jet fuel stocks were 43 million barrels at the end of January 2005, 3 million barrels higher than both the stock level in the previous month and the level 1 year earlier.

Petroleum

Note 1. Survey Respondents: The Energy Information Administration (EIA) uses a number of sources and methods to maintain the survey respondent lists. On a regular basis, survey managers review such industry publications as the Oil and Gas Journal and Oil Daily for information on facilities or companies starting up or closing down operations. Those sources are augmented by articles in newspapers, letters from respondents indicating changes in status, and information received from survey systems.

To supplement routine frames maintenance and to provide more thorough coverage, a comprehensive frames investigation is conducted every 3 years. This investigation results in the reassessment and recompilation of the complete frame for each survey. The effort also includes the evaluation of the impact of potential frame changes on the historical time series of data from these respondents. The results of this frame study are usually implemented in January to provide a full year under the same frame.

In 1991, the EIA conducted a frame identifier survey of companies that produce, blend, store, or import oxygenates. A summary of the results from the identification survey was published in the Weekly Petroleum Status Report dated February 12, 1992, and in the February 1992 issue of the Petroleum Supply Monthly. In order to continue to provide relevant information about U.S. and regional gasoline supply, the EIA conducted a second frame identifier survey of those companies during 1992. As a result, numerous respondents were added to the monthly surveys effective in January 1993. See Explanatory Note 7 in the Petroleum Supply Monthly.

Note 2. Motor Gasoline: Beginning in January 1981, the EIA expanded its universe to include non-refinery blenders and separated blending components from finished motor gasoline as a reporting category. Also, survey forms were modified to describe refinery operations more accurately.

Beginning with the reporting of January 1993 data, the EIA made adjustments to the product supplied series for finished motor gasoline. It was recognized that motor gasoline statistics published by the EIA through 1992 were underreported because the reporting system was (1) not collecting all fuel ethanol blending, and (2) there was a misreporting of motor gasoline blending components that were blended into finished gasoline. The adjustments are incorporated into EIA's data beginning in January 1993. To facilitate data analysis across the 1992-1993 period, EIA has prepared a table of 1992 data adjusted according to the 1993 basis. See Petroleum Supply Monthly, March 1993, Table H3.

Note 3. Distillate and Residual Fuel Oils: The requirement to report crude oil in pipelines or burned on leases as either distillate or residual fuel oil has been eliminated. Prior to January 1981, the refinery input of unfinished oils typically exceeded the available supply of unfinished oils. That discrepancy was assumed to be due to the redesignation of distillate and residual fuel oils received as such but used as unfinished oil inputs by the receiving refinery. The imbalance between supply and disposition of unfinished oils would then be subtracted from the production of distillate and residual fuel oils. Two-thirds of that difference was subtracted from distillate and one-third from residual. Beginning in January 1981, the EIA modified its survey forms to account for redesignated product and discontinued the above-mentioned adjustment.