Energy

Crude Oil Price Increases Gain After Inventory Report

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 2.3 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 534.8 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 2.6 million barrels in the week ending March 25. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 2.0 million barrels in crude inventories. API also reported gasoline supplies fell by 1.94 million barrels and distillate stockpiles fell by 95,000 barrels.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 2.5 barrels last week, according to the EIA, yet remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged about 9.4 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 5% compared with the same period a year ago.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil bounced off a two-week low on Tuesday following remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that have been interpreted as supportive of continued accommodation. That sent the dollar lower and crude oil prices higher. Crude traded higher again Wednesday morning as well.


Following a strong gain since mid-February, crude prices have moderated over the past week or so as speculative traders have dumped their short positions in the futures market. Betting on higher crude prices is the order of the day, and it looks like a solid bet for the next several weeks at least.

Gasoline prices have reached a 2016 high of around $2.04 a gallon as the impact of refinery maintenance and turnaround reaches its peak.

Before the EIA report, WTI crude for May delivery traded up about 3.2% at around $39.50 a barrel. WTI settled at $38.28 on Tuesday and rose to around $39.75 shortly after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $29.85 to $65.39.

Distillate inventories decreased by 1.1 million barrels last week and 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 8% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 4.9 million barrels a day last week, up by about 200,000 barrels a day from the prior week.

For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.7 million barrels a day, up by 636,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 90.4% of capacity, with daily input averaging over 16.2 million barrels, about 414,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

Refinery utilization is up 2 percentage points week over week, and throughput is up by more than 400,000 barrels a day. Several things could be happening here: Americans are driving more; a lot of refinery maintenance and turnaround are already behind us, which indicates that output will rise putting downward pressure on gasoline prices; or gasoline exports are rising. A combination of the three is our best guess.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.049, up about 2.8% from $1.993 a week ago and 30 cents higher than the month-ago price. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.420 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 0.3%, at $84.76 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $90.09. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 1.3% and is down about 18.1% since August 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 1.2%, at $96.43 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $112.20. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 10.8% over the past 12 months and trade down about 28.6% since August 2014.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 3%, at $10.09 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $21.50.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up about 2.1% at $26.77, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $39.80.

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