Total gasoline inventories decreased by 800,000 barrels last week, and they remain in the middle of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the EIA’s measure of consumption) averaged 8.8 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up about 3.2% over the same period a year ago.
Distillate inventories slipped by 1.1 million barrels last week and remain below the lower limit of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged 4.1 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 12.7% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged 4.9 million barrels a day last week, about 100,000 barrels a day below the prior week’s production.
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Tuesday evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 920,000 barrels in the week ending May 9, together with a fall of 2 million barrels in gasoline supplies and a rise of 883,000 barrels in distillate supplies. For the same period, Platts estimated a decline of 1.5 million barrels in crude inventories, a decline of 1 million barrels in gasoline inventories and a rise of 1 million barrels in distillate inventories.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices opened at $101.91 on Wednesday and were trading up about 0.6% before the EIA report at around $102.29 a barrel. The WTI price slipped a bit to around $102.21 shortly after the report was released.
For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.1 barrels million a day, up about 242,000 barrels a day from the previous week. Refineries were running at 88.8% of capacity, with daily input of 15.7 million barrels a day, down 237,000 barrels compared with the previous week’s average.
Retail pump prices are slightly lower again this week. Refining throughput slipped somewhat during the week on a couple of refinery issues.
According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $3.64, down from $3.666 a week ago and up from $3.638 a month ago. Last year a gallon of regular cost $3.582 on average in the United States.
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Here is a look at how share prices at three U.S. producers are reacting to this latest report.
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) traded up about 0.2%, at $102.55 in a 52-week range of $84.79 to $103.45.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 0.3%, at $126.20 in a 52-week range of $109.27 to $127.83.
Continental Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLR) traded up about 0.5%, at $135.28 in a 52-week range of $80.44 to $138.78. Continental is the largest producer in the Bakken shale play.
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