EIA analysis: falling inventories on the day when the Cushing exits opened

On the day that it was announced that the Seaway Pipeline was going to be reversed, opening the possibility of a rebalancing of US inventories away from the overloaded Cushing, Oklahoma hub, the EIA reported that overall US crude inventories declined last week.

The two aren't related at all, but clearly, analysis of that weekly data is going to be significantly different once 150,000 b/d of pipeline capacity from Cushing to the US Gulf is opened early next year. It will be a lot different once that capacity gets up to 400,000 b/d.

You can read Platts analysis of this week's numbers here.