The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories decreased by 2.4 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 485.8 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory is now at the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.
Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories fell by 2.2 million barrels in the week ending December 2. API also reported gasoline supplies increased by 830,000 barrels and distillate inventories rose by 4.1 million barrels. For the same period, analysts had estimated a decrease of 1.37 million barrels in crude inventories, along with a rise of 1.95 million barrels in gasoline supplies and an increase of 1.24 million barrels of distillates as well.
Total gasoline inventories increased by 3.4 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 about 9.1 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, down 1.2% compared with the same period a year ago.
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After a four-day spurt that saw benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices rise by around 19%, traders pulled back a little (down about 2%) on Tuesday. Late in the day, Reuters reported that OPEC production in November reached a record high of 34.2 million barrels a day, an increase of about 400,000 barrels a day compared with October.
Cartel members appear to be pumping flat out, building inventories ahead of the agreed production cuts that go into effect in January. Because the agreement refers to production and not exports, having extra barrels in storage is a good strategy for maintaining market share once the cuts are realized.
In a separate report from Reuters, Saudi Aramco is reported to have cut its price for Arab Light Crude for its Asian customers to its lowest level in four months. That allows Aramco to continue selling more oil to Asian buyers even after the cuts become effective.
Aramco is particularly concerned about Russia. The Russians also have been producing at record levels, and Aramco does not want to lose its Asian customers to cheaper crude from Russia.
Before the EIA report, WTI crude for January delivery traded down about 1% at around $50.40 a barrel and fell to around $50.10 after the report’s release. WTI crude settled at $50.93 on Tuesday. The 52-week range on January futures is $34.55 to $53.72.
Distillate inventories increased by 2.5 million barrels last week and remain above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged 3.9 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up 5.7% compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged about 5.1 million barrels a day last week, down about 100,000 barrels compared with the prior week’s production.
For the past week, crude imports averaged over 8.3 million barrels a day, up by 755,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 90.4% of capacity, with daily input averaging over 16.4 million barrels, about 134,000 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 $2.192, up from $2.154 a week ago and down about 1.5 cents compared with the month-ago price. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.028 on average in the United States.
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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 0.1%, at $87.68 in a 52-week range of $71.55 to $95.55. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock has traded up about 11% and is down about 15% since August 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 0.4%, at $113.19 in a 52-week range of $75.33 to $114.91. As of last night’s close, Chevron shares have added nearly 26% over the past 12 months and trade down nearly 16% since August 2014.
The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 1.5%, at $11.12 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $12.45.
The VanEck Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 0.6% to $33.99, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $34.24.
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