EIA Report Schedule, Explained

1. The answer first: the weekly calendar

Almost every question that brings readers to this page is a timing question. When is the EIA report today? Why is it late? Is the API number out yet? Which week does Thursday's storage number cover? The whole rhythm fits in one table. Every time below is eastern, and every weekly report describes the same data week: the seven days ending the previous Friday.

Two facts in that table explain most of the confusion around oil data. First, the API and EIA releases are not two reports on two different weeks. They are two surveys of the same week, published about 18 hours apart, which is why our companion explainer on API vs EIA inventory reports exists. Second, none of these releases is same-day data. The freshest figure in Wednesday's report describes last Friday. The calendar is a rhythm of old news arriving on a strict schedule, and the market trades the schedule as much as the numbers.

2. Which week the data covers, and why there is a five day gap

Every weekly petroleum figure is stamped with a week-ending date, and that date is a Friday. Companies report their stocks, refinery runs, and movements for the seven days ending Friday. The EIA then needs the weekend and the first days of the following week to collect the survey forms, check them, and build the tables, which is why the report lands on Wednesday morning rather than Monday. The API follows the same collection schedule and deadline, by its own account, because it uses the same EIA weekly survey forms: respondents send API an exact copy of what they submit to the EIA. One collection rhythm, two publications, the private one a day earlier.

The practical consequences are worth stating plainly. A Wednesday headline about a crude draw is a statement about last week, not this one. A storm that shut Gulf Coast platforms on Monday does not appear in Wednesday's production estimate as a full week of lost output; it appears the following week. And when two weekly reports seem to contradict each other, the first check is whether they are even describing the same Friday. Dated search queries are a standing feature of this data: readers search for a specific week's report because the week-ending date, not the release date, is the identity of the data.

3. Wednesday, piece by piece: what lands at 10:30 and what lands at 1:00

The Weekly Petroleum Status Report is not one document dropped at once. The EIA posts the report's data tables to its website after 10:30 a.m. eastern on Wednesdays in spreadsheet and CSV form, and the PDF files follow after 1:00 p.m. The EIA's own analysis, This Week in Petroleum, is also generally available at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. So the market-moving event at 10:30 is a set of tables: the US balance sheet first, then stocks by product and district, Cushing, refinery utilization, production, trade, and product supplied. Our guide to how to read the EIA weekly petroleum report walks those tables line by line, and our analysis page archives the numbers behind it.

The 10:30 timing matters because of where it sits in the trading day. US crude futures are in full morning trade, the numbers hit every terminal at the same second, and the first price move is a reaction to the gap between the printed figure and the analyst consensus, a mechanism section 6 takes apart. Nothing about the report is embargoed or staggered: the schedule is the level playing field, and it is published by the EIA in advance, including its exceptions.

4. The holiday rule: when Wednesday becomes Thursday at noon

The most common schedule surprise is also the most predictable. When a federal holiday falls in the data week or the release week, the EIA moves the Weekly Petroleum Status Report, and it publishes the exceptions ahead of time on its release schedule page. The standard release is Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. eastern. The exceptions in the EIA's own table follow a pattern: the release moves to Thursday, and the time usually moves to 12:00 p.m. eastern. The two exceptions that bracket this page's publication:

The extreme case in the same EIA table shows how far the rule can stretch: the report for the week ending December 19, 2025 was released on Monday, December 29, 2025 at 5:00 p.m., because the Christmas holiday consumed the normal release week. The API bulletin shifts on its own version of the rule: it publishes on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. instead of Tuesday when Monday is a federal holiday. Net effect in a holiday week: the preview and the official report both slide, roughly preserving the gap between them, and a reader who only checks on Wednesday morning finds nothing and concludes the data is missing. It is not missing. It is scheduled.

5. Thursday 10:30: the gas report runs on the same clock

The Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report follows the petroleum report by almost exactly 24 hours: Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. eastern, same week-ending Friday, same holiday logic. It is a smaller document with an outsized price effect, because natural gas has no global tanker market to smooth a regional surprise the way crude does. The report gives working gas in storage for the Lower 48 and five regions, the net change for the week, and the two comparisons that frame it: against last year and against the five year average.

A recent release shows the shape. The report published Thursday, October 15, 2026, for the week ending October 9, recorded a 67 Bcf injection that took working gas to 3,567 Bcf, against analyst survey expectations of roughly 74 to 75 Bcf reported in market coverage of the release. A build smaller than expected, in the weeks when the market is counting injections before winter, is a tightening signal, and gas prices moved within seconds of the 10:30 timestamp. Our guide to how to read the EIA weekly natural gas storage report covers the regional rows and the five year range in the same detail as the petroleum guide, and the natural gas price page tracks the price the report moves.

6. Consensus: the number the market actually trades at 10:30

A release time on its own does not move prices. What moves prices is the distance between the printed figure and the consensus, the median expectation from surveys of analysts that news agencies run before each report. By 10:29 on a Wednesday, the market has a settled view: crude expected to draw by so much, gasoline to build by so much. The 10:30 print is then read as a surprise, not a level. A draw of 3 million barrels is bearish if consensus expected 8, and bullish if consensus expected a build.

The holiday-shifted report of October 2026 is the cleanest recent arithmetic. For the week ending October 9, 2026, the EIA reported a crude stock draw of 8.557 million barrels. Market coverage of the release put the consensus expectation at a draw of about 0.288 million barrels. The surprise is the difference: 8.557 minus 0.288 is 8.269 million barrels, a draw roughly 8.3 million barrels larger than the market had priced. Nothing about the release time changed that arithmetic, but the schedule shaped its reception: the figure arrived at noon on a Thursday instead of 10:30 on a Wednesday, into a different trading session, after an extra day of waiting in a holiday week. When you read that a report "moved the market," this subtraction, actual minus consensus, is the move. The calendar tells you when the subtraction happens.

7. Friday 1:00 p.m.: the rig count closes the week

The last appointment of the week is the slowest signal. Baker Hughes schedules its North American rig count for noon central time on the last working day of each week, 1:00 p.m. eastern, and the company has issued weekly US and Canadian counts since 1944. The count splits rigs by target (oil, gas, miscellaneous), by state, and by basin, and the international count follows monthly, on the fifth working day of the month.

A Friday afternoon release, for a series that leads production by months, rarely whips prices the way a Wednesday surprise does, and that is the point of including it in the calendar: the week's data has a tempo. Tuesday previews, Wednesday decides, Thursday answers for gas, and Friday takes the drilling industry's temperature for the quarter ahead. Our Baker Hughes rig count explainer covers what the count does and does not measure, and the rig counts page carries the current series.

8. The monthly layer underneath the weekly rhythm

Three EIA publications sit under the weekly cycle and quietly correct it. The Drilling Productivity Report, published monthly, estimates output and drilled-but-uncompleted well counts for the major shale regions; our guide to reading it covers its tables. The Short-Term Energy Outlook, also monthly, is the EIA's forecast, the numbers our forecasts page tracks. And the Petroleum Supply Monthly restates the weekly petroleum data on a fuller survey basis, roughly two months behind, which is where weekly estimates go to be revised. Weekly production figures in particular are model estimates between monthly benchmarks: a reader who treats a Wednesday production print as a final measurement will be confused when the monthly data moves it. The weekly calendar is for trading and for watching. The monthly layer is for the record.

9. Schedule mistakes that produce bad reads

• Assuming Wednesday in a holiday week. The report is not late and not missing; it is on the EIA's published exceptions table, usually Thursday at noon eastern. The Christmas 2025 case slid to the following Monday at 5:00 p.m.
• Reading the release date as the data date. A report released October 21 describes the week ending October 16. Analysis that treats the figures as current-week conditions is five to twelve days behind the physical market it describes.
• Treating the API bulletin as the official number, or as a leak of it. The API publishes its own survey on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., built from copies of the same company submissions the EIA receives. It is a preview with its own tally, and the two tallies differ, sometimes in sign on individual products.
• Trading the level instead of the surprise. Prices react to actual minus consensus. A large draw can coincide with falling prices when a larger draw was expected.
• Forgetting the gas report is Thursday. The storage report lands 24 hours after the petroleum report, at the same 10:30 a.m. eastern, and it moves a different market on the same week-ending data.
• Mixing time zones. The EIA publishes in eastern time. The Baker Hughes count is scheduled at noon central. A calendar kept in the wrong zone puts a reader an hour early or late for one of the two.

10. Frequently asked questions

When does the EIA weekly oil inventory report come out?

Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. eastern time. That is the standard release time the EIA publishes for the Weekly Petroleum Status Report, and it covers the week ending the previous Friday. In weeks with a federal holiday, the EIA moves the release, usually to Thursday at 12:00 p.m. eastern, and publishes the exceptions in advance on its release schedule page.

What time is the EIA natural gas storage report?

Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. eastern time. The Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report lands almost exactly 24 hours after the petroleum report, and it also covers the week ending the previous Friday. Holiday weeks can shift it, on the same logic as the petroleum schedule.

When does the API inventory report come out?

Tuesdays at about 4:30 p.m. eastern time, after US markets close. The American Petroleum Institute publishes its Weekly Statistical Bulletin then, roughly 18 hours before the EIA report on the same data week. If Monday is a federal holiday, the API bulletin moves to Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

When is the Baker Hughes rig count released?

Fridays. Baker Hughes schedules the North American rig count for noon central time, which is 1:00 p.m. eastern, on the last working day of each week. The company has published weekly US and Canadian counts since 1944. A separate international count follows monthly, on the fifth working day of the month.

Why was the EIA report on a Thursday this week?

A federal holiday fell in the data week or the release week. The EIA publishes its exceptions ahead of time: the report for the week ending October 9, 2026 came out Thursday, October 15 at 12:00 p.m. eastern because of Columbus Day, and the report for the week ending November 6, 2026 is scheduled for Thursday, November 12 at 12:00 p.m. because of Veterans Day.

What does the EIA report cover, and how old is the data?

The Wednesday report covers the week ending the previous Friday: crude and product stocks, refinery activity, production estimates, imports and exports, and product supplied. So the newest figure in a Wednesday release is already five days old, and the week it describes started twelve days earlier. The monthly EIA publications then restate the same ground on a fuller survey basis, which is why weekly figures get revised.

11. Related reading

• How to Read the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report - the Wednesday 10:30 release itself, table by table, with a worked reading of the latest report.
• API vs EIA Inventory Reports, Explained - why the Tuesday preview and the Wednesday benchmark tally the same week differently.
• How to Read the EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report - the Thursday 10:30 companion release, its regions and its five year range.
• Baker Hughes Rig Count, Explained - the Friday release, what it counts, and why it leads production by months.
• How to Read the EIA Drilling Productivity Report - the monthly layer under the weekly rhythm.
• EIA Crude Oil Inventory and Weekly Petroleum Status Report - the archived weekly data these releases produce.
• Rig Counts - the current rig count series the Friday release updates.

Data and sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) - Weekly Petroleum Status Report release schedule page, read October 21, 2026 (standard release Wednesday 10:30 a.m. eastern; exceptions table including the report for the week ending October 9, 2026 released Thursday, October 15, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. for Columbus Day, the report for the week ending November 6, 2026 scheduled Thursday, November 12, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. for Veterans Day, and the report for the week ending December 19, 2025 released Monday, December 29, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. for Christmas); Weekly Petroleum Status Report front matter (data tables posted after 10:30 a.m. eastern on Wednesdays, PDF files after 1:00 p.m., This Week in Petroleum generally available at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesdays). American Petroleum Institute, Weekly Statistical Bulletin frequently asked questions, read October 21, 2026 (publication Tuesdays at about 4:30 p.m., Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. if Monday is a federal holiday; same EIA weekly survey forms and collection schedule). Baker Hughes rig count release notes (North American count scheduled for noon central time on the last working day of each week; weekly counts published since 1944; international count on the fifth working day of the month). Market coverage of the October 15, 2026 EIA release (crude draw of 8.557 million barrels against a consensus expectation of about 0.288 million) and of the October 15, 2026 natural gas storage release (67 Bcf injection to 3,567 Bcf, against survey expectations of roughly 74 to 75 Bcf), read October 21, 2026. All other figures are as published by the sources named, for the periods stated.