The Energy Information Administration will not release any further data, the agency said in an update on the heavily anticipated inventory figures that were due to be released last Wednesday.
The data was not published last week after the EIA discovered "a voltage irregularity, which caused hardware failures on two of our main processing servers."
This failure prevented the EIA from processing and releasing multiple reports last week-including its highly sought after Weekly Petroleum Status Report, which publishes not only U.S. crude oil inventory data, but gasoline and diesel inventories, as well as refinery utilization figures. Also missing last week was weekly U.S. crude oil production figures.
The EIA did not provide a timeframe for when the data will be released, nor did they comment on whether their systems would be up and running to publish this week's Petroleum Status Report.
Last week, the oil industry had to rely on inventory figures from the American Petroleum Institute, which surveys the same companies and uses the same form to collect the data. But because of the way in which this data is modeled, there are differences in the final output.
"We will continue to provide timely updates as we bring our systems back online and will share a schedule for our product releases as soon as possible," the EIA said in its statement on its website.
Last Tuesday, the API reported a build in crude oil inventories of 5.607 million barrels and a build in gasoline inventories of 1.216 million barrels. Distillates saw a decrease of 1.656 million bpd.
The delay caused a flurry of angry Twitter responses following today's update as the market tries to assess the state of the market as gasoline prices remain uncomfortably high for consumers and for the current administration in the run-up to midterm elections.
The API data is still scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More
Comments
The real reasons could be a huge withdrawal of oil from the inventories and a major decline in US shale oil production both of which the EIA is averse to declare.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London