The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its latest weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 3.9 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 521.9 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory stands at historically high levels for this time of year, according to the EIA.
Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 4.4 million barrels in the week ending March 2. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 3.1 million barrels in crude inventories. API also reported gasoline supplies fell by 2.1 million barrels, compared with an analysts’ estimate that gasoline inventory fell by 1.5 million barrels.
Total gasoline inventories decreased by 4.5 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, but remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 9.3 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 7% compared with the same period a year ago.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil rose above $38 briefly on Tuesday before settling at $36.50. Rising prices are almost entirely due to the decline in U.S. onshore production. The EIA reported earlier this week that shale oil production is expected to fall another 106,000 barrels per day in April, and the agency is forecasting average production of 8.7 million barrels a day for 2016, down from an estimated 9.4 million barrels a day in 2015.
In February, U.S. production fell by 68,000 barrels a day in the major shale basins. Overall, including offshore, production fell by 80,000 barrels a day. The thing to watch here is offshore production.
The EIA has forecast Gulf of Mexico production at 1.63 million barrels a day in 2016, rising to 1.79 million in 2017 and 1.91 million by December 2015, a record high. A total of eight new projects that came online in 2015 will be joined by five more by the end of 2017. At the end of December 2015, Gulf production had reached 1.63 million barrels a day, and the 2015 average was 1.54 million barrels a day.
Before the EIA report, WTI crude for April delivery traded up about 1.8% at around $37.20 a barrel. WTI settled at $36.50 on Tuesday and rose to around $37.50 shortly after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI April futures is $28.74 to $65.71.
Distillate inventories decreased by 1.1 million barrels last week but remain above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged about 3.6 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 12.8% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 4.7 million barrels a day last week, down by about 100,000 barrels a day from the prior week.
For the past week, crude imports averaged over 8 million barrels a day, down by 244,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 89.1% of capacity, with daily input of averaging over 15.9 million barrels, about 59,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average.
According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $1.822, up about 2.1% from $1.785 a week ago and up nearly 10 cents compared with the month-ago price. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.453 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 0.9%, at $83.35 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $90.09. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 3% and is down about 20% since August 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up nearly 4%, at $92.27 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $112.20. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 14.6% over the past 12 months and trade down about 34% since August 2014.
The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 4.4%, at $10.06 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $21.50.
The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up about 0.4% to $26.28, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $39.80.
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