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How to read this
Every page is built the same way, so once you read one you can read all of them.
The chart
The line is the series itself: a price in dollars per gallon, stocks in millions of barrels, or supply in thousand barrels per day. Price pages carry both survey lines where they exist, residential and wholesale, so the gap between them is visible at a glance. The range toggle narrows the view; the full history is always there.
The "vs normal" number
Our yardstick for normal is the median of the same calendar week over the prior five years. When a page says stocks are 16% above normal, that is a computed figure: today's value against that five-year median, not a feel for the season. The colored tag at the top of each page bins it. For inventories, below normal reads as tight. For prices, above normal reads as hot. Neither is a prediction.
The table
Under the chart is the same data as numbers: the latest value and how it moved week over week, versus four weeks ago, year over year, and against the five-year median. The chart is for the glance; the table is for the decision.
The seasonal note
State and regional price pages follow EIA's heating-season survey, which runs October through March. From April through September those pages show the full history and the last winter reading, with a note saying the survey resumes in October. That is the survey's design. Stocks, supply and the Mont Belvieu spot pages update year-round.
The note
One short paragraph in plain English, leading with the number that matters. It only uses figures already on the page. It never forecasts and it never tells you what to do.
What we do not say
We do not predict prices, stocks or exports. We do not advise on pre-buys, contracts, winter fill or hedging, in any phrasing. Where a figure comes from a public agency, the page names it: the EIA weekly price survey, the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. Where we cite EIA's own outlook it is labeled as EIA's forecast, never folded into our numbers.
How often it updates
The weekly EIA data lands Wednesdays and the brief follows it. The spot series is daily. Every page carries a visible "Last updated" date so you always know how fresh the reading is.
New to the vocabulary? The glossary defines every term the brief uses.