Crude Inventories Rise, Gasoline Declines, Prices Up a Little

Total gasoline inventories fell by 400,000 barrels last week and remain in the middle of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied averaged 8.6 million barrels a day over the past four weeks — a rise of 0.7% compared with the same period a year ago.

Platts estimated a build of 1.5 million barrels in crude inventories, while Dow Jones estimated a build of 2 million barrels. Dow Jones also forecast a build of 200,000 barrels in gasoline stocks and a drop of 900,000 barrels in distillate stocks.

Crude prices, which had fallen to about $86.00 a barrel before the report was released, have risen about $0.15 a barrel following the EIA report and are down about 0.3% on the day so far.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.9 million barrels a day, an decrease of about 141,000 barrels a day from the previous week. Refineries were running at 86% of capacity, with daily input of 14.6 million barrels a day, about 55,000 barrels a day less than the previous week.

Distillate inventories fell by 2.5 million barrels last week and remain well below the lower limit of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged more than 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down 14% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production totaled nearly 4.6 million barrels a day last week, essentially flat with the prior week.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) is down about 0.3% at $31.68 in a 52-week range of $29.02 to $42.30.

The United States Gasoline ETF (NYSEMKT: UGA) is up about 0.7% at $56.49. The 52-week range is $44.98 to $62.13.

Paul Ausick