The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will make the following changes to weekly petroleum supply data beginning with the Weekly Petroleum Status Report (WPSR) release on April 15, 2020, with data for week ending April 10, 2020.

• EIA discontinued collecting weekly survey data and reporting stocks of propylene held at bulk terminals. Beginning with the data for week ending April 10, 2020, U.S. and regional stocks of propylene reported by EIA include only barrels of propylene held at refineries; barrels of propylene held at bulk terminals are excluded. EIA removed stocks of propylene held at terminals in the weekly data beginning with data for week ending January 2, 2015. EIA also recalculated quantities of stock change and demand measured as product supplied using only stocks of propylene held at refineries. EIA discontinued reporting propylene stocks held at bulk terminals to eliminate the possibility of counting barrels of petroleum feedstocks delivered for use as input to petrochemical cracking units as demand measured as product supplied and then later counting the same barrels as bulk terminal stocks of propylene.
• EIA discontinued collecting weekly survey data on imports and estimating weekly data on production, ending stocks, and exports of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE), and other oxygenates. The production, ending stocks, and exports data were not collected on weekly survey forms but were derived based on the latest data published in the Petroleum Supply Monthly and other sources. Beginning with the data for week ending April 10, 2020, weekly petroleum supply and disposition balances will not include data for MTBE, ETBE, or other oxygenates. EIA discontinued collecting and reporting data on MTBE, ETBE, and other oxygenates because only small quantities of these products have been blended into fuel in the United States since 2006. EIA also wanted to eliminate double counting isobutane and isobutylene barrels as both product supplied of isobutane and isobutylene and also as production of ethers in supply and disposition tables.

EIA will implement these changes in all tables of the WPSR, Petroleum Navigator, and EIA’s API on the EIA website. The API keys will remain the same for all data series. EIA incorporated these changes in the Petroleum Supply Monthly data for January 2020 that was released on March 31, 2020.