Energy
Second Week of Oil Inventory Declines Running ETFs (USO, OIL)
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It looks like we are seeing the second week of draws in crude oil and oil products. The Department of Energy is confirming data from the EIA last night showing a second week of inventory declines after weeks and weeks of build-ups. This is lending strength to the United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL).
This last week’s crude oil stocks fell by 2.105 million barrels down to just over 368.5 million barrels. We had a rough estimate that oil analysts were expecting a drop of 600,000 or slightly more.
The biggest drop came in gasoline inventories with a drop of nearly 4.4 million barrels to just over 203.9 million barrels. We were looking for a draw of more than 1 million, but nowhere near the 4.4 million reported.
We saw a rise of 700,000 barrels in distillates to an inventory of 148.1 million barrels.
The Uinited States Oil ETF (NYSE: USO) is up 2.8% at $33.71 and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) is up 2.7% at $22.12. This has the USO at levels that could challenge the January highs and the “OIL” ETF is in the same boat.
JON C. OGG
MAY 20, 2009
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