The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 200,000 barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 482.6 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 3.9 million barrels in the week ending January 8. For the same period, analysts at Platts had estimated an increase of 2 million barrels in crude inventories.
Total gasoline inventories increased by 8.4 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and have moved above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 8.8 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, down by 4.3% compared with the same period a year ago.
Crude prices fell 10% last week and are down about 17% since the end of 2015. The EIA said on Tuesday that total U.S. crude production fell to an average of 9.4 million barrels a day in 2015 and that production will slide to an average of 8.7 million barrel a day this year and 8.5 million barrels a day in 2017. The agency also said that December production fell 80,000 barrels a day month-over-month.
Before the EIA report, benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for February delivery traded up about 1.4% at around $30.87 a barrel. WTI settled at $30.44 on Tuesday and dipped to around $30.25 immediately after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $29.93 to $65.50.
Distillate inventories increased by 6.1 million barrels last week and have moved above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged about 3.4 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 12.1% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged about 4.8 million barrels a day last week.
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A second consecutive sharp increase in distillate inventories emphasizes this year’s lower demand for heating oil due to warmer winter weather. The second consecutive steep increase in gasoline stockpiles is likely a result of lower demand both from domestic users and from export customers.
For the past week, crude imports averaged over 8.2 million barrels a day, up about 678,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 91.2% of capacity, with daily input of averaging over 16.4 million barrels, about 194,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.
According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $1.946, down about 2.7% from $1.999 a week ago and from $2.015 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.117 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 about 1%, at $75.95 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $93.45. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 15.6% and is down about 21.5% since early November of 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 0.3%, at $82.44 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $112.93. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 21% over the past 12 months and trade down about 31.5% since early November 2014.
The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 1.5%, at $9.03 in a 52-week range of $8.90 to $21.50. The low was posted Wednesday morning.
The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 0.8% to $23.07, in a 52-week range of $22.56 to $39.80.
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