Crude Oil Price Gains Despite Another Large Inventory Build

What is interesting is that the price of crude oil fell in the first 15 minutes after the 10:30 a.m. release, but 90 minutes later the price of crude had recovered all of its post-news losses and was back above $48.

Crude prices have gained more than $2 a barrel in the past week, with a lot of the gain due to a weakening dollar. A potential agreement with Iran — which may or may not occur by the end of March — could cause prices to drop sharply again if traders think that a gusher is on its way to market from a newly sanction-free Iran. At least one report noted that any lifting on oil or banking sanctions is still months away — neither will be lifted the moment a deal is reached.

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Total gasoline inventories decreased by 2.0 million barrels last week, but remain above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the EIA’s measure of consumption) averaged over 8.8 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 0.4% compared with the same period a year ago.

Distillate inventories were down so little that they looked basically unchanged from the last week — down by 0.034 million barrels to 125.849 million barrels.

Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 4.8 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell by 2.6 million barrels and distillate inventories fell by 641,000 barrels in the week ending March 20.

Before the EIA report, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for May delivery was trading up about 1% at around $47.94 a barrel Wednesday morning. The WTI price dipped just below $47.50 immediately after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $44.03 to $98.87.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.4 million barrels a day, down by 104,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 89% of capacity, with daily input of more than 15.5 million barrels, about 94,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.421, up from $2.419 a week ago and from $2.328 a month ago. Last year a gallon of regular cost $3.531 on average in the United States. Gasoline price declines are once again tracking the drop in crude oil prices.

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The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) was up about 2% at $17.13 around the noon hour, versus a 52-week range of $15.61 to $39.44. The exchange-traded product was down at almost $16.80 shortly after the news.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) was up by 1.75% at $33.71 midday, versus a 52-week range of $31.51 to $58.01. This fund traded as low as $33.44 on Wednesday, making it much less volatile.