Total U.S. petroleum demand in January continued a long string of monthly declines against the previous year, although at a more moderate rate, said API in its most recent Monthly Statistical Report released last week.

Overall demand in January, as measured by domestic deliveries, totaled 19.5 million bpd, a decline of 3.1 percent from the 20.114 million bpd during January 2008. The decrease is nearly half the 6.0 percent demand drop for full year 2008.

“All told, weak demand across the board has given us the lowest deliveries for January in seven years,” said Ron Planting, API statistics manager.

However, the data indicated gasoline demand in January registered its first monthly year-on-year increase in more than 12 months, up 1.7 percent at 8.960 million bpd for the monthly period. Deliveries of distillate fuel oil, which includes diesel fuel, fell 3.5 percent from January 2008 levels to 4.061 million bpd and jet fuel deliveries tumbled 8.6 percent on the year to 1.413 million bpd. Residual fuel oil deliveries jumped 6.2 percent from January 2008’s record low.

Reflecting declines in domestic demand, refinery inputs in January fell 2.6 percent from a year ago, though capacity utilization rates still averaged more than 83 percent.

U.S. crude oil production in January rose above 5.1 million bpd as a 1.8 percent increase in output from the lower 48 states offset a 1.1 percent decrease in Alaskan crude oil production.

API reported a record amount of gasoline was produced during the month of January at 8.919 million bpd, which was an increase of 1.7 percent from year-ago levels. U.S. refiners produced 4.386 million bpd of distillate during the month reviewed, also a record for the month and an increase of 6.7 percent from January 2008.

The data showed that import volumes continued to reflect weakening oil demand, as the combined volume of crude oil and products imports dropped to the lowest January level since 2005 at 12.9 million bpd. Crude oil imports fell to 9.66 million bpd, the lowest level for the month in five years. Total products imports dropped 6.1 percent from January 2008 to 3.280 million bpd. Gasoline imports, however, reversed previous declines with a year-on-year jump of 8.7 percent to more than 1.1 million bpd—the highest January level ever. Distillate imports slipped from year ago levels to below 300,000 bpd.

Inventories of crude oil and all major refined products rose during the month reviewed. Crude stocks ended January at 345.7 million bbl—their highest end-January level since 1990. Distillate inventories posted an unusual counter-seasonal build, up 600,000 bbl or 0.4 percent from December 2008 to 141.1 million bbl in January. Gasoline supply ended the month reviewed at 216.8 million bbl, an increase of 3.1 percent from December 2008 and 8.9 percent above January 2008 levels.