The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 400,000 barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 465.8 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory remains near levels not seen at this time of year in at least the past 80 years.

Tuesday evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories fell by 958,000 barrels, gasoline inventories decreased by 2 million barrels and distillate inventories rose by 4.2 million barrels in the week ending July 3. For the same period, analysts polled by Reuters estimated a decrease of 700,000 barrels in crude inventories.

Total gasoline inventories increased by 1.2 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain in the upper half of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 9.5 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 5.3% compared with the same period a year ago.

ALSO READ: 4 Oil Service Stocks to Buy With at Least 40% Upside Potential

The collapse in China’s stock prices, combined with the prior week’s unexpected increase in the crude oil inventory and the uncertainty surrounding Greece and the European Union, has been enough to push the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price down by nearly $6 a barrel since last week. Expectations for rising prices have all but disappeared from the minds of hedge funds. Fund managers cut their long positions on the futures markets to their lowest level in more than three months. To top it off, OPEC production in June remained at around 31 million barrels a day and the cartel even lowered prices a bit in order to maintain market share. Traders also worry that a deal with Iran over that country’s nuclear program will lead to a raising of sanctions and more oil on the market. There is little to prop up crude prices in the very near term.

Before the EIA report, WTI crude for August delivery traded up about 0.6% at around $52.70 a barrel. The WTI price slumped to around $51.70 (down about 1.3% for the day) shortly after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $48.71 to $95.80.

Distillate inventories increased by 1.6 million barrels last week and remain in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged about 3.9 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 1.5% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged 5.1 million barrels a day last week, up about 100,000 barrels a day compared with the prior week’s production.

For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.3 million barrels a day, down by about 197,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 94.7% of capacity, with daily input of 16.6 million barrels, about 65,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.76, down from $2.763 a week ago and from $2.75 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular cost $3.649 on average in the United States.

ALSO READ: 5 Oil and Gas Stocks Analysts Want You to Buy Now

Here is a look at how share prices for two blue-chip stocks and two exchange traded funds reacted to this latest report.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) traded down about 0.8%, at $82.19 in a 52-week range of $81.49 to $104.76. Year to date, Exxon stock traded down about 11% and is down about 15% since early November, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 1.4%, at $93.88 in a 52-week range of $93.50 to $135.10. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have also dropped about 16.4% year to date and trade down about 21.8% since early November.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 2.8%, at $17.24 in a 52-week range of $15.61 to $38.30.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 1.5%, at $33.14 in a 52-week range of $31.51 to $57.99.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.