Comments on the EIA Supply and Demand Chart

There are a couple of things, however, that I wanted you to be aware of in looking at that chart. The first is that it was for the first Quarter (1Q) of this year. If we look back at the history since 2001, these are the numbers in mbd:

Year . . . . . . . . . .Supply. . . . . . . . . . Demand
2001 . . . . . . . . . .77.73 . . . . . . . . . . .77.67
2002 . . . . . . . . . .76.93 . . . . . . . . . . .78.37
2003 . . . . . . . . . .79.65 . . . . . . . . . . .79.90
2004
The differences between these numbers has been provided by stockpiles set up for just such events (and the flow in and out of those stocks is given in the underlying table at the EIA site). And as a general rule it is in the 4th Quarter (4Q) that demand is highest, and against which stocks are built every year.

Much more analysis after the jump at The Oil Drum.