The EIA delayed its Weekly Petroleum Status Report by several hours on Monday, leaving oil traders without expected data during active market hours.
The report covers U.S. crude oil and refined product inventories for the week ended Dec. 19, and it was scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.
But early that morning, the agency said the report would not be released as planned, and no new time was given.
Hours later, the EIA popped back out and said the report would be published at 5 p.m., after markets had closed. The delay followed staffing reductions inside the agency after President Donald Trump ordered changes to the federal workforce.
The delay came after the report had already been shifted from its normal Wednesday release to Monday because Trump signed an executive order that gave federal employees additional days off on Dec. 24 and Dec. 26.
The agency said the calendar change exposed internal problems that affected how the report was produced and formatted for publication.
Staff cuts disrupted systems behind the petroleum report
The EIA said the publication date changed to match the holiday schedule, but the internal code used to generate the report was not updated at the same time. The agency said this mismatch slowed the creation of tables and files used to publish the report.
The agency said the issue did not affect the accuracy of the data and said the problem would not happen again.
The staffing reductions came from buyouts and restructuring tied to a government efficiency push that was previously associated with Elon Musk. The EIA lost more than 100 employees this year from a workforce of about 350 people.
Several of those who left had worked directly on systems used to build the petroleum report. The report relies on multiple surveys and software systems, and the loss of staff reduced the number of people who understood how those systems connect.
Tristan Abbey, the EIA Administrator, said the agency needs faster progress to fix its aging technology.“Without decisive acceleration, we’re going to have much bigger problems than delayed data tables,” Tristan said in a statement.
He said staff are working to rebuild critical products that are written in outdated programming languages and said the work is continuing at full speed.
Delays like this are rare for the petroleum report. During the recent government shutdown, the figures were still released on time. The report includes weekly data on U.S. oil inventories, which are widely followed by energy traders, refiners, and analysts.
Oil prices held steady as geopolitics drove trading
Despite the delay, the oil market showed little reaction. Traders focused more on global political events than on U.S. inventory levels. Scott Shelton, an energy specialist at TP ICAP Group Plc, said traders showed little concern about the missing data.
“There is a general indifference to it other than rolling their eyes on how inefficient and unpredictable data has become from the US government, post the shutdown,” Scott said.
Oil prices were steady on Tuesday after a volatile session. Brent crude for February delivery, which expires Tuesday, slipped 2 cents, settling at $61.92 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 13 cents, closing at $57.95 a barrel.
Both benchmarks had risen more than 2% on Monday after Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Yemen. Prices also moved higher after Moscow accused Kyiv of targeting a Russian presidential residence.
The accusation hurt expectations for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Kyiv rejected the claim, saying it was baseless and aimed at disrupting negotiations.
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