Energy

Crude Oil Price Jumps Sharply on Surprise Inventory Drawdown

Thinkstock

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories decreased by 3.4 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 540 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory remains 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 3.5 million barrels in the week ending May 6. API also reported gasoline supplies rose by 300,000 barrels and distillate stockpiles fell by 1.4 million barrels. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of around 400,000 barrels in crude inventories, along with a decline of 600,000 barrels in gasoline supplies and an 800,000-barrel decline in distillates.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 1.2 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 9.5 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 5.1% compared with the same period a year ago.

A massive wildfire in the oil sands region of Alberta has shut down around 1 million barrels a day of production. There was no loss of life reported as a result of the fire and little to no damage to the industry’s facilities around Fort McMurray. But because more than 85,000 people were evacuated, restarting production could take more time than anticipated. Politically triggered output declines have also plagued Nigeria and Libya.


If the fire helped push prices higher, the replacement of long-time Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi has provided a bearish counterweight. The Saudis said on Tuesday that they plan to increase production to meet demand from customers, and the Kuwaitis have indicated they increased production as well. While these increases may be intended to slow down Iranian output and sales, their effect on oil markets has been to cool rising prices.

The EIA continues to see a drop of 800,000 barrels a day on average in 2016 compared with 2015 daily production of 9.4 million barrels. But the effect is not expected to bring the market into balance until the first half of next year, and increased output from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran could delay achieving balance even longer.

Before the EIA report, benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for June delivery traded down about 1% at around $44.20 a barrel and hopped to around $45.00 shortly after the report’s release. WTI crude settled at $44.66 on Tuesday. The 52-week range on June futures is $30.79 to $65.24.

Distillate inventories decreased by 1.6 million barrels last week but also remain well above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged 4.1 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 0.7% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 4.6 million barrels a day last week, up less than 100,000 barrels a day from the prior week.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.7 million barrels a day, down by 5,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 89.1% of capacity, with daily input averaging 16.2 million barrels, about 193,000 barrels a day more than the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.20, down from $2.223 a week ago and up nearly 16 cents compared with the month-ago price. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.659 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 0.2%, at $89.43 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $90.00. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock has traded up about 3.7% and is down about 12.8% since August 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 0.4%, at $100.90 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $109.30. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 5.7% over the past 12 months and trade down about 24.2% since August 2014.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 2.2%, at $11.23 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $21.20.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up about 0.4% to $27.34, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $38.96.

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