U.S. Petroleum products

U.S. crude oil inventories
After increasing from July to September, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories fell below the five-year (2021–2025) low in October, according to our Weekly Petroleum Status Report. U.S. crude oil inventories declined by 14.1 million barrels in October, driven by a decrease in imports and an increase in exports. The decrease in net imports likely reflects the large spread between Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices that, even when accounting for elevated shipping costs, makes it relatively more attractive for the United States to export crude oil and less attractive to import crude oil. Ongoing tightness in the global oil tanker market will sustain a wide, albeit narrowing, Brent-WTI spread in the coming months.

U.S. crude oil inventories in our forecast remain below the five-year average in the final two months of 2026. We forecast U.S. crude oil inventories will increase in 2027, from 416 million barrels at the end of January to 444 million barrels at the end of December due to higher net imports. We expect the Brent-WTI spread will narrow as oil production from the Middle East increases next year, increasing the availability of crude oil outside of the Atlantic Basin and decreasing demand for U.S. crude exports in more distant markets such as Asia.

Forecast record-high U.S. crude oil production in 2027 also drives inventory builds. We forecast U.S. crude oil production will increase to 14.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2027, a 3% increase from a record of 13.9 million b/d in 2026. Slightly lower refinery inputs of crude oil will also help inventories recover next year.

U.S. refinery inputs
U.S. refineries have been running at very high rates in 2026, driven by high crack spreads, an indicator of refinery profitability. Crack spreads have been high this year because of damage to refineries in the Middle East and Russia that has reduced volumes of refined petroleum product exports available to the global market. We expect U.S. crack spreads will remain elevated for the remainder of the year and through most of 2027. In response to high crack spreads, crude oil inputs to refineries will remain above seasonal averages in the fourth quarter of 2026, although we expect runs to be lower than the summer highs, in line with historical seasonality.

U.S. crude oil inputs to refineries averaged 16.6 million b/d in October, and we expect similar inputs in November. We expect inputs to refineries to increase in December, following the completion of fall maintenance, but for inputs to be slightly below December 2025 levels because of reduced overall refinery capacity compared with last year. Lower capacity reflects the closure of Valero’s Benicia refinery in Northern California in early 2026.

In 2027, we expect ongoing disruptions to global markets will contribute to high crack spreads, thereby supporting high refinery utilization next year. We expect these disruptions to be mostly concentrated in the first quarter, with constraints easing through the remainder of the year. We forecast utilization of operable capacity in 2027 to be about the same as in 2026, while U.S. crude oil inputs to refineries will average 16.5 million b/d in 2027, compared with 16.7 million b/d in 2026. Potential unplanned outages because of weather or other events, as well as the need to undertake maintenance that was deferred in 2026, present a source of uncertainty and downside risk to our refining forecast.