DOE Inventory Pleases Energy Bulls (OIH, USO, OIL)

There is some mixed data from the Department of Energy on its weekly inventory data today, although the negatives here seem to outweigh the gains.  We are watching the Oil Services HOLDRs (NYSE: OIH), the United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) as the key oil and oil service ETFs.  NYMEX WTI Crude is up at the highs of the session and trading up $2.21 at $72.90 at 10:37 AM EST.  So much for those sub-$70 prices from yesterday.

• Crude stockpiles fell by -3.689 million barrels to 332.387 million barrels.  Dow Jones was looking for a draw by -1.7 million barrels, and our discussions with traders yesterday had only a draw of 1.5 million barrels expected.
• Gasoline stockpiles rose by 879,000 barrels to 217.213 million barrels.  Dow Jones had estimates at a gain of 1.4 million, while we were only looking for 1 million.
• Distillate stockpiles fell by -2.954 million barrels to 164.363 million barrels.

Refineries ran at 79.95%, down from 81.05% last week.  Dow Jones had 81.4% estimates, but we were told yesterday to be happy with anything still close to 81%.  This was one of the larger disappointments.

The Oil Services HOLDRs (NYSE: OIH) is up 2% at $119.70, the United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF is up 2.6% at $36.87 and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) is up 2.8% at $24.36.  All key ETFs were already up since the 10:30 data, but shares are up even more now.

JON C. OGG