DOE Inventories Confirms EIA Trends (USO, OIL)

The weekly DOE inventories confirmed the EIA data last night, and the data is about just as bullish for oil and energy prices.  The United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF and iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) are both responding positively.

Crude oil inventories fell 4.38 million barrels to 361.595 million barrels.  Gasoline inventories also came in lower by -1.553 million barrels at 201.649 million barrels.  We were looking for drops in these numbers, but Dow Jones had noted some consensus estimates as being -700,000 on crude oil inventories.  They also had gasoline inventories expected to show a gain of about 800,000 barrels.

On the distillates front, those inventories fell by -318,000 barrels to 149.718 million barrels.  Dow Jones was expecting a very small build.

Refinery capacity was a tad lower at 85.85% versus estimates of 86.7% and last week’s 86.26%.

The United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF is up 2.5% at $39.15 and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) is up 2.5% at $25.87. NYMEX WTI Crude is trading up $1.65 at $71.66 after the data.

The good news here is that oil inventories are still significantly higher than in many other starting periods into the summer high demand period.

Jon C. Ogg
June 10, 2009