The short answer
The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes the Weekly Petroleum Status Report (WPSR) every Wednesday at 10:30 AM Eastern Time (14:30 UTC during daylight saving / 15:30 UTC standard time).
This release contains the official figures for crude oil, gasoline, and distillate stockpiles in the United States. For traders of WTI crude (CL futures, USO), Brent, gasoline (RBOB), and energy equities — it's the largest scheduled event of the week.
This guide gives you the full 2026 release calendar, the holiday shifts that move the release to Thursday, and the practical implications for timing trades.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this article is investment advice. Trading WTI futures, ETFs, and related instruments involves substantial risk including the loss of more than your initial capital.
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What the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report measures
The WPSR is the official U.S. government tally of petroleum supply, demand, and inventory. Each Wednesday's release covers the week ending the previous Friday. The numbers that move WTI within seconds:
| Series | What it tracks | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Crude Oil Stocks (excl. SPR) | Total commercial crude in storage | Headline — surprises >3M bbl regularly move WTI 1–2% |
| Gasoline Stocks | Motor gasoline inventories | Driving-season indicator; moves RBOB and refiners |
| Distillate Stocks | Diesel + heating oil | Industrial demand + winter heating |
| Refinery Utilization | % of refining capacity in use | Reflects refining margins and seasonal patterns |
| Crude Imports / Exports | Cross-border flow | Trade balance signal; matters for OPEC+ context |
| SPR Stocks | Strategic Petroleum Reserve | Tracked separately; political signal |
The headline crude number is what hits the wire first. Within 10 seconds, algos parse the rest and the market either confirms direction or reverses.
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Why the release is at exactly 10:30 AM ET
The 10:30 ET slot is fixed by the EIA's publication calendar and aligns with NYMEX open trading hours. By that time:
- Asian markets have closed
- European markets are mid-session
- U.S. session has been open 60 minutes — liquidity is at its peak
- CME WTI futures have already digested overnight Asian/European cues
This timing maximises liquidity and price discovery efficiency. It also makes WTI the most consistently volatile asset on the Wednesday calendar.
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Complete 2026 EIA release schedule
Standard Wednesdays. Holiday-affected weeks marked with ⚠️ — see notes below.
| Month | Release dates (Wed 10:30 ET) |
|---|---|
| January | 7, 14, 21, 28 |
| February | 4, 11, 18, 25 |
| March | 4, 11, 18, 25 |
| April | 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 |
| May | 6, 13, 20, 27 |
| June | 3, 10, 17, 24 |
| July | 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 |
| August | 5, 12, 19, 26 |
| September | 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 |
| October | 7, 14, 21, 28 |
| November | 4, 12 ⚠️ (shifted), 18, 25 ⚠️ (Wed 1pm Thanksgiving early) |
| December | 2, 9, 16, 24 ⚠️ (Thursday — Christmas Eve), 30 |
The next release as of this writing is Wednesday, 2026-05-20 at 10:30 AM ET.
#### Holiday shift mechanics
When a Wednesday falls on or near a U.S. federal holiday, the EIA shifts the release. The pattern:
- Christmas Eve week (24 Dec falls on Thursday): release moves to Thursday 24 Dec at 11:00 AM ET
- Thanksgiving week (Thanksgiving on 26 Nov 2026, a Thursday): release moves to Wednesday 25 Nov at 1:00 PM ET (later than normal, to accommodate pre-holiday close)
- Independence Day week (July 4 falls on Saturday in 2026 — no shift)
- Labor Day week (Monday holiday — no shift)
Always confirm via eia.gov the week of a holiday — the EIA posts confirmation 5–10 days in advance.
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Daylight saving time and UTC conversion
The 10:30 AM ET release time translates to UTC as follows:
| Period | UTC offset | 10:30 ET = UTC |
|---|---|---|
| EDT (mid-March to early November) | UTC−4 | 14:30 UTC |
| EST (early November to mid-March) | UTC−5 | 15:30 UTC |
DST transition dates in 2026:
- Spring forward: Sunday 8 March 2026 (EST → EDT)
- Fall back: Sunday 1 November 2026 (EDT → EST)
For international traders, the practical reading is: the release is always 10:30 AM in New York. Local conversion shifts twice a year. European traders see it at 16:30 CEST in summer / 15:30 CET in winter.
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How quickly does WTI react to the release?
Empirically, across hundreds of releases since 2020:
| Window | Typical price reaction |
|---|---|
| First 30 seconds | Algorithmic response — most of the directional move begins |
| 30 seconds to 5 minutes | Human discretionary flow + secondary number digestion |
| 5 to 30 minutes | Trend continuation or fade |
| 30 minutes to close | Returns to driver of broader macro context |
The single biggest implication: alert latency matters. A 5-minute lag between the EIA publication and your alert delivery means most of the actionable price discovery has already happened.
That's why traders who care about the print typically use:
- Direct EIA API integration for sub-second pull
- Telegram squawk services for sub-3-second delivery
- Professional terminals for sub-second wire integration
Free aggregators and RSS-based news apps typically lag 5–15 minutes — workable for analysis, not for trading the print.
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What the consensus is — and where to find it
You can't evaluate a "surprise" without a consensus number. Useful pre-release sources for the EIA report:
- API report (American Petroleum Institute) — published the prior Tuesday at 4:30 PM ET. Private-sector tally that correlates with EIA roughly 60–70% directionally. The number to beat.
- Reuters survey — published 24–48 hours pre-release, polls 5–8 industry analysts for crude/gasoline/distillate expectations.
- Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal polls — similar to Reuters, sometimes with different analyst panels.
- TradingEconomics calendar — aggregates the median expected change.
The surprise = actual − consensus. A consensus of "−2.0M crude draw" and an actual of "−6.2M draw" is a 4.2M-barrel bullish surprise.
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Common interpretation mistakes
#### 1. Reading the raw number, not the surprise
If consensus is for a 3M draw and the report prints a 2M draw, that's actually a bearish outcome — the market expected a bigger draw and got less. The number is "negative" (draw) but the surprise is "positive" (more crude than expected).
#### 2. Ignoring secondary numbers
A bullish crude draw paired with a much-larger-than-expected gasoline build is mixed, not bullish. Markets often unwind the initial spike when the secondary numbers contradict.
#### 3. Trading against the macro overlay
If the U.S. dollar is rallying sharply on the day of the release, a normally bullish crude draw can be muted or flat. Always check the macro tape (DXY, equity sentiment, geopolitical newsflow) before sizing.
#### 4. Expecting the move to continue all day
Most of the directional impact is contained in the first 30–60 minutes. Holding for "the rest of the move" usually gives back gains to chop or mean reversion.
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Trading the release — companion guide
For practical setups (surprise momentum, fade the spike, pre-print options straddle), see our companion piece How to trade the EIA crude inventory release: A 2026 playbook.
For a comparison of how to receive the alert in time to act, see WTI crude oil price alerts: 8 options compared.
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Frequently asked questions
Q: Is the EIA release ever cancelled? Very rarely. Government shutdowns can delay publication by 1–3 days. The last material delay was in early 2019 during the 35-day shutdown. The EIA always restores the calendar promptly.
Q: Why does the release time differ from the API report time? API is a private trade association (4:30 PM ET Tuesday). EIA is a government agency with a different publication schedule (10:30 AM ET Wednesday). They use independent data sources and methodologies.
Q: How accurate is the EIA report? The data is collected from refineries, terminals, and storage operators via mandatory weekly surveys. There's always sampling and reporting variance, but the EIA revises numbers in the monthly Petroleum Supply Monthly report. The weekly is treated as the authoritative real-time reference.
Q: Are there subscriptions that give the EIA data faster than 10:30 ET? No. The EIA publishes at exactly 10:30:00 ET. The differentiator across alert services is the latency between EIA's publication and your delivery — not the underlying data timing.
Q: Can I get the EIA data programmatically? Yes — the EIA provides a free API at api.eia.gov. Free key from eia.gov/opendata/register.php takes 30 seconds. Rate limits are generous for non-commercial use.
Q: Does the EIA cover Brent crude or only WTI? The WPSR focuses on U.S. inventories — so it's a WTI catalyst directly. Brent reacts indirectly through the WTI-Brent spread and broader sentiment. A bullish WTI EIA usually drags Brent higher within minutes.
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Bottom line
The EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report is one of the few scheduled events on the trading calendar where retail traders can extract genuine edge from a public data source — if they can receive the print fast enough to act before the move completes.
Whether you trade the release actively or just need context for swing positions, the schedule above gives you 52 weeks of pre-known volatility events. Set a recurring calendar block every Wednesday at 10:25 AM ET to be at the screen — and treat holiday-shifted weeks accordingly.
For the playbook itself, see How to trade the EIA crude inventory release.
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Resources
- EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report (official)
- EIA free API documentation
- Trading News Terminal — US Futures news — live wire coverage
- Trading News Terminal Pro — sub-second EIA inventory alerts
- How to trade the EIA release (companion playbook)
- WTI crude oil price alerts compared
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About the author
Luís Barata is the founder of Trading News Terminal and a forex/commodities trader with over a decade of experience trading European session opens and U.S. data releases. Read his trading bio.