The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 1 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 488.2 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 rose by 2.6 million barrels in the week ending November 13. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 1.1 million barrels in crude inventories.
Total gasoline inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 9.1 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, down by 0.2% compared with the same period a year ago.
On Monday the EIA released crude oil and natural gas proved reserves totals for calendar year 2014. Proved reserves of crude oil and leased condensates rose 9.3%, or 3.4 billion barrels, last year. Total proved reserves of liquids rose to 39.9 billion barrels, the first time since 1972 that U.S. proved reserves have topped 39 billion barrels. By definition, proved reserves are those for which there is reasonable certainty (around 90%) that the reserves can be profitably developed and extracted at existing economics.
Before the EIA report, benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for January delivery traded down about 2% at around $42.02 a barrel, before rising to around $42.30 within half an hour. The WTI price dipped to around $41.90 immediately following the report’s release, down about 2.2% on the day. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $39.97 to $76.60.
Distillate inventories increased by 1 million barrels last week and have now moved into the upper half of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged over 3.9 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 2.1% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 5 million barrels a day last week, down slightly compared with the prior week’s production.
For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.3 million barrels a day, up about 365,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 92% of capacity, with daily input averaging 16.4 million barrels, about 304,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average.
According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.058, down nearly 3.4% from $2.13 a week ago and down from $2.205 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.812 on average in the United States.
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 up less than 0.1%, at $81.82 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $95.33. Year to date, Exxon stock traded down about 11.5% and is down about 15% since early November of 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 0.6%, at $90.74 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $116.35. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 19% year to date and trade down more than 24% since early November 2014.
The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 1.2%, at $13.17 in a 52-week range of $12.37 to $28.18.
The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 0.5% at $31.26, in a 52-week range of $26.00 to $43.00.
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