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Propane inventories drew 400,000/bbls for the week ending May 22, 2026.
While a draw in May is not unprecedented, they are not common. Once we get past April, the most common reasons for draws tend to be related to data from hurricanes in the Gulf, where export tankers cannot get out onto open water.
Production remained strong this week at a hair under 3M/bpd, but the primary reason the data showed a draw is that exports were reported at 2.625M/bpd, which would be an all-time record weekly high by 290,000/bpd.
I am skeptical of this total, as are others in the industry. You can see the top ten weekly export totals ever reported in the image above, so you can see how much of an outlier this total is. I am not even certain if there is enough export capacity in the Gulf to lead to 2.625M/bpd of exports, so this will be something to track in the coming weeks to see if we see some type of correction.