US regional oil tightness ·EIA week ending August 21, 2026
US fuel stocks are not one number. The sharpest regional stress is East Coast distillate, at the <1st percentile of the modern era (2015-present) and -11.54M bbl (-35%) against its same-week five-year average. The deepest cushion is Midwest jet fuel at the 97th percentile.
Gasoline by district
week ending August 21, 2026US total 206.8M bbl · <1st percentile since 2015 · -13.12M bbl (-6%) vs same-week 5-year average
| District | Stocks | vs 5-yr same week | Since 2015 | WoW | YoY | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midwest (PADD 2) | 43.3M bbl | -3.41M bbl (-7%) | 1st pctile | +0.15M | -1.87M | Tight |
| East Coast (PADD 1) | 52.3M bbl | -3.25M bbl (-6%) | 5th pctile | -0.14M | -2.79M | Tight |
| Gulf Coast (PADD 3) | 77.2M bbl | -4.72M bbl (-6%) | 9th pctile | -2.32M | -6.75M | Tight |
| Rocky Mountain (PADD 4) | 6.5M bbl | -0.07M bbl (-1%) | 12th pctile | +0.27M | -0.15M | Lean |
| West Coast (PADD 5) | 27.6M bbl | -1.67M bbl (-6%) | 17th pctile | -0.49M | -3.93M | Lean |
Distillate by district
week ending August 21, 2026US total 103.4M bbl · 1st percentile since 2015 · -17.35M bbl (-14%) vs same-week 5-year average
EIA distillate covers diesel and heating oil together; a tight district is a tight distillate pool, not necessarily a diesel shortage alone.
| District | Stocks | vs 5-yr same week | Since 2015 | WoW | YoY | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Coast (PADD 1) | 21.0M bbl | -11.54M bbl (-35%) | <1st pctile | -1.21M | -7.87M | Tight |
| West Coast (PADD 5) | 10.6M bbl | -0.49M bbl (-4%) | 4th pctile | -0.45M | -0.44M | Tight |
| Gulf Coast (PADD 3) | 39.6M bbl | -3.71M bbl (-9%) | 19th pctile | -0.99M | -3.19M | Lean |
| Midwest (PADD 2) | 28.6M bbl | -1.69M bbl (-6%) | 32nd pctile | +0.16M | +0.50M | Normal |
| Rocky Mountain (PADD 4) | 3.7M bbl | +0.09M bbl (+3%) | 34th pctile | +0.28M | +0.16M | Normal |
Jet fuel by district
week ending August 21, 2026US total 45.7M bbl · 96th percentile since 2015 · +3.05M bbl (+7%) vs same-week 5-year average
| District | Stocks | vs 5-yr same week | Since 2015 | WoW | YoY | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocky Mountain (PADD 4) | 0.7M bbl | -0.02M bbl (-3%) | 48th pctile | +0.01M | +0.07M | Normal |
| East Coast (PADD 1) | 11.0M bbl | +0.02M bbl (+0%) | 77th pctile | -0.34M | +0.91M | High |
| Gulf Coast (PADD 3) | 14.8M bbl | +1.34M bbl (+10%) | 77th pctile | -0.59M | +0.89M | High |
| West Coast (PADD 5) | 11.1M bbl | +1.10M bbl (+11%) | 88th pctile | +0.34M | -0.32M | High |
| Midwest (PADD 2) | 8.1M bbl | +0.61M bbl (+8%) | 97th pctile | +0.03M | +0.56M | Ample |
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About this comparison
The national gasoline, distillate, and jet totals each hide five very different regional balances. This page ranks the EIA's PADD districts within each product so the stressed region and the comfortable one are visible side by side, on the same reporting week.
Ranking: within each product, districts sort by the post-2015 percentile of their current stocks (tightest first), with the same-week five-year deviation as the tiebreak. Both fields are shown in the table. Low stock and fast draw are different conditions: the percentile measures the level, the WoW column shows the current pace.
Weekly regional ending stocks of finished motor gasoline, distillate fuel oil, and kerosene-type jet fuel by PADD, in millions of barrels. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Petroleum Status Report. Updated weekly.
Regional oil inventories: common questions
- What is a PADD?
- PADDs are the five Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts the EIA uses to report regional petroleum data: East Coast (1), Midwest (2), Gulf Coast (3), Rocky Mountain (4), and West Coast (5). They date to World War II fuel rationing and remain the standard regional cut of US fuel statistics.
- Why do regional fuel inventories diverge from the national total?
- Fuel moves on fixed infrastructure. The Gulf Coast refines far more than it burns and pipelines the surplus east and north, the East Coast depends on those pipelines and on imports, and the West Coast has no pipeline connection to the rest of the country at all. A national total can sit at a normal level while one district runs near record lows.
More questions
- Is a tight distillate number the same as a diesel shortage?
- Not exactly. EIA distillate stocks cover diesel and heating oil together, so a low distillate reading means the combined pool is thin. It usually moves with diesel, but the series does not separate the two, and this page does not claim it does.
- How is the tightness ranking computed?
- Deterministically, from disclosed fields only: each district's current stocks are ranked against its own post-2015 history, compared with its same-calendar-week five-year average, and shown with week-over-week and year-over-year changes. No model or editorial judgment enters the ranking, and every row uses the same reporting week.
- How fresh is this comparison?
- The EIA publishes the underlying regional series every Wednesday around 10:30 a.m. Eastern for the prior Friday's week. This page recomputes from those series and shows the reporting week beside every table.