A week after registering the largest stockpile of oil since 2016, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) again has bad news about oil bulls: 15.2 million barrels were added to oil stockpiles in the week ended April 3.

These quantities exceeded even those of the previous week – 13.8 million barrels.

The EIA also reported that gasoline stocks increased by 10.5 million barrels and distillate fuel stocks added 476,000 barrels.

The day before the EIA publishes its weekly oil report, it presented its latest short-term energy forecast, in which the organization’s analysts forecast a significant drop in fuel demand in the first half of the year, with the most significant blow coming in the current quarter.

The EIA said it expects gasoline consumption to fall by 1.7 million barrels per day this quarter from the previous quarter to 7.1 million barrels per day. However, in the second half of the year, gasoline consumption should be restored to 8.9 million barrels per day.

US refineries processed 13.6 million barrels per day of crude oil last week, the EIA said.

Last week, gasoline production reached an average of 5.8 million barrels per day and distillate production reached 5 million barrels per day.

Despite the dismal weekly update of the American Petroleum Institute (API) for oil stocks and the EIA report today, oil prices can continue to rise for at least another day. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its partners are due to meet tomorrow to decide on a new, much more serious cut in production, which will include other producers such as Canada and Norway.

However, the deal appears to be contingent on US involvement in the talks, which adds to the doubt that an agreement will be reached at all since Washington is clearly unwilling to impose any cuts on US oil production.