US defends its oil-output data

What do the EIA's weekly production figures tell the market—and what don't they?

Every Wednesday at 10:30am Eastern Time oily eyes turn to the Energy Information Administration's website for a weekly insight into how much oil the US is producing, exporting, refining and storing. The numbers, especially when they're unexpected, move markets. They're also not well understood. That is especially true of US output, which has become an increasingly important market indicator as the country marches towards becoming the world's largest oil producer. The EIA shed some much-needed light on how it compiles those weekly numbers in a presentation this week, which should at least clear up some confusion. The short explanation is that the weekly production figure is an extrapolation o